The Goodness of Existence

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Philosophy Now
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The Goodness of Existence

Post by Philosophy Now »

Jarlath Cox says whether life brings pleasure or pain, the value of being born is the ability to experience at all.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/149/The_Goodness_of_Existence
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Dontaskme
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

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I also contended that since experiences of pleasure and pain can both be somewhat good experiences, what is good about either is the ability to experience at all. From this we can infer that existence is always a benefit rather than a harm.
To know you are alive is to know you are not alive in the exact same instance of experiencing.

No one benefits and no one is harmed by what no one chose to experience. Reality is not conceptual...the mind is conceptual. And the mind is a myth.


Existence is niether a benefit nor is it a harm ...because it hasn't got a mind...to make the distinction.

If it did have a mind, then it could choose whether to live or not live...and that's when it can also choose whether it's a benefit to live, or a harm to live. That choice to live or not is contingent upon a mind.

Now all you have to do is locate the mind....and blame everything that happens in life on that one thing only.

If you locate the mind and call it your own...then it's you and ONLY YOU...who is choosing whether it is a benefit or a harm to live. Only the claimer is the blamer.

If I cannot locate my mind..then I am NOT imposing neither benefit or harm on existence...and is why animals are lucky...because they do not philosophize over ideas about whether it is beneficial or harmful to live.

A male lion in the wild does not ask the lioness before he inseminates her whether she thinks it will be a benefit or a harm to make a little cub...the action is purely automatic, there is no mind there involved...imposing reason or purpose on the action.

So if there is a mind that can choose whether life is beneficial or a harm...then the choice will be made by that mind only, and that's ok....what's not ok is to then impose your chosen choice ...onto someone else...that's the problem humans face, that other sentient animals do not have to face...because only the knower of concepts are responsible for the consequences of that knowing...as and through that knowledge.


So just because you think existence is a benefit, rather than a harm...does not mean someone else does..and that's a human dilemma.

To make statements like this....''From this we can infer that existence is always a benefit rather than a harm''

Is very selfish and self-indulgent...it's a self-bias and anecdotal opinion....it's an artificial imposition.

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Dimebag
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

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Philosophy Now wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 9:05 am Jarlath Cox says whether life brings pleasure or pain, the value of being born is the ability to experience at all.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/149/Th ... _Existence
The article mentions David Benetar, the proponent of “antinatalism”, the view that it is better to have never been born that to bear the pain of existence.

I happen to disagree with David Benetar, possibly due to my own ignorance of the sheer amount of suffering going on at any one time. But, I am not a consequentialist nor utilitarian. I cannot weigh up good vs bad experience and deem the pain not worth the benefit of the pleasure of existence. It is not for me, nor anyone else, to choose or even say it is better to exist than not exist. But, for me personally, I am glad I exist. There has been suffering. There has also been happiness, and pleasure. I keep the Buddhist concept of impermanence in mind when reflecting on the past pleasure and pain, as well as future pleasure and pain. The one thing which remains is that which isn’t (formlessness).

For me, especially after realising what I am, experientially, it has been worth the suffering, even though suffering continues.
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

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Dimebag wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 11:30 amBut, for me personally, I am glad I exist.
Just maybe you say that is because you already exist...so it's not like you have a choice to live your existence or not...you have to live it whether you like it or not...You did not choose to be born, that choice was made by someone else. So you have to play the game....what's the alternative...you cannot even comprehend an alternative, since life is all you can know.

On the other hand, even though you did not choose to be born...maybe you are one of those people who just like being alive...and that's ok. But, I do not think that's Benatars argument...he's arguing the imposition that not everyone who is born will be happy about it....as many people young and old go on to commit suicide.
Dimebag wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 11:30 am There has been suffering. There has also been happiness, and pleasure. I keep the Buddhist concept of impermanence in mind when reflecting on the past pleasure and pain, as well as future pleasure and pain. The one thing which remains is that which isn’t (formlessness).

For me, especially after realising what I am, experientially, it has been worth the suffering, even though suffering continues.
Sounds fine for you...but for me personally, and for many others...if I was able to choose to be born knowing what I know about being alive...I wouldn't choose to be born. Then again, other people, like yourself, would choose to be born again.

But the problem of ( birth )runs much deeper than whether someone likes being alive or not...And that is for every person that has ever been born, who has ever experienced the knowledge of what it feels like to be alive....NEVER actually chose to be alive....and I think that's what David Benatar's main bone of contention is ...no one gets to choose their own conception...the choice is made by someone else...namely, the two people who indulge in sexual activity....already knowing that action can result in another life being born...not really giving any consideration to the idea that their potential ''offspring'' might not want what someone else has thought to a good idea or that life will be of a benefit to them.

Assuming the two people having sex know that by having sex does result in more life...if they do not know...then no one ever chooses life anyway...and so there would be no harm or benefit of being alive there at all.


David Benatar's idea is that if you've NEVER known life in the first place, then there is nothing to gain, or miss, for never having it, neither is there any need or desire for it...all these ideas regarding knowledge are purely subjective.

Obviously once you are alive...you've got two choices, love or loath.

It really starts to get messy, when people who loath their own life, then go on to make more lives.

If you knew that you were going to be tortured by life in the most horrific ways before you were born, and that you had the choice whether to accept that experience ..would you willing choose to experience that? ...for me personally, a life time supply of chocolate would not tempt me into ever being born again....already knowing what it feels like to be alive.


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jayjacobus
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by jayjacobus »

We don't choose to be born but, once we are, we learn how to live. If we were never born, we would never learn anything.
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

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jayjacobus wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 4:27 pm We don't choose to be born but, once we are, we learn how to live. If we were never born, we would never learn anything.
We learn to die. Death is our only achievement in life.

That's the stark, raw reality, some people refuse to face. The void is the only reality there is. Striving for achievement is like filling nothingness with nothingness.

No one learns how to live...no more than one learns how to breathe...you are life being lived, and it's all nothing..
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by jayjacobus »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 7:34 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 4:27 pm We don't choose to be born but, once we are, we learn how to live. If we were never born, we would never learn anything.
We learn to die. Death is our only achievement in life.

That's the stark, raw reality, some people refuse to face. The void is the only reality there is. Striving for achievement is like filling nothingness with nothingness.

No one learns how to live...no more than one learns how to breathe...you are life being lived, and it's all nothing..
That is a half hearted way of looking at life.
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

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jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 5:57 pm
That is a half hearted way of looking at life.
That's probably because in life there are two sides to every story...

1: is Pain

2: is absence of Pain

Choose your pleasure...and then decide if it's worth the price tag...does the price tag match the product. That's always worth weighing up...before we go messing around with other sentient life forms, as if we were some kind of Frankenstein monster god...or something worse.

Intelligent people have stopped procreating anyway...that's just a fact.
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by Dontaskme »

And you can almost certainly guarantee that anything that is GOOD for you, is seen as goodness, is certainly going to kill you.

Any addiction is a serial killer.

Imagine being born only to find out you are dying from the moment you are born...what's good about that? ...it's a dumb and stupid idea...imo

We spend our entire lives avoiding death, doing all the right things, trying to be the good guy, eating the right foods etc...only to die in an earthquake, or under a bombed building...it's a pretty dumb deal and the ace cards all run out eventually.
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by popeye1945 »

The goodness of existence is debateable, if the value of existence is in experience both of suffering and joys, non- existence beats existence as existence's sole purpose is to stay in existence which is futility in itself. A better life through chemistry----lol!!
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by withcaremorality »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:21 am
I also contended that since experiences of pleasure and pain can both be somewhat good experiences, what is good about either is the ability to experience at all. From this we can infer that existence is always a benefit rather than a harm.
To know you are alive is to know you are not alive in the exact same instance of experiencing.

No one benefits and no one is harmed by what no one chose to experience. Reality is not conceptual...the mind is conceptual. And the mind is a myth.


Existence is niether a benefit nor is it a harm ...because it hasn't got a mind...to make the distinction.

If it did have a mind, then it could choose whether to live or not live...and that's when it can also choose whether it's a benefit to live, or a harm to live. That choice to live or not is contingent upon a mind.

Now all you have to do is locate the mind....and blame everything that happens in life on that one thing only.

If you locate the mind and call it your own...then it's you and ONLY YOU...who is choosing whether it is a benefit or a harm to live. Only the claimer is the blamer.

If I cannot locate my mind..then I am NOT imposing neither benefit or harm on existence...and is why animals are lucky...because they do not philosophize over ideas about whether it is beneficial or harmful to live.

A male lion in the wild does not ask the lioness before he inseminates her whether she thinks it will be a benefit or a harm to make a little cub...the action is purely automatic, there is no mind there involved...imposing reason or purpose on the action.

So if there is a mind that can choose whether life is beneficial or a harm...then the choice will be made by that mind only, and that's ok....what's not ok is to then impose your chosen choice ...onto someone else...that's the problem humans face, that other sentient animals do not have to face...because only the knower of concepts are responsible for the consequences of that knowing...as and through that knowledge.


So just because you think existence is a benefit, rather than a harm...does not mean someone else does..and that's a human dilemma.

To make statements like this....''From this we can infer that existence is always a benefit rather than a harm''

Is very selfish and self-indulgent...it's a self-bias and anecdotal opinion....it's an artificial imposition.

.
If existence can be an "imposition" even though creation doesn't violate the existing interests of a being, then it can also be seen as a genuine gift that one cannot ask for prior to existence. Never bestowing happiness in order to avoid harms that may not always outweigh the positives doesn't seem ethically justifiable to me. A balanced perspective seems to be the better option.
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by withcaremorality »

popeye1945 wrote: Fri Jun 03, 2022 2:36 pm The goodness of existence is debateable, if the value of existence is in experience both of suffering and joys, non- existence beats existence as existence's sole purpose is to stay in existence which is futility in itself. A better life through chemistry----lol!!
Non-existence hardly seems more purposeful!
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by withcaremorality »

Dontaskme wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 6:07 am And you can almost certainly guarantee that anything that is GOOD for you, is seen as goodness, is certainly going to kill you.

Any addiction is a serial killer.

Imagine being born only to find out you are dying from the moment you are born...what's good about that? ...it's a dumb and stupid idea...imo

We spend our entire lives avoiding death, doing all the right things, trying to be the good guy, eating the right foods etc...only to die in an earthquake, or under a bombed building...it's a pretty dumb deal and the ace cards all run out eventually.

Not necessarily. Things such as love and beauty can help strengthen life. Of course, extreme views such can indeed be problematic, but this also applies to views such as universal antinatalism.

If finding happiness is an "addiction", then it's better than a pessimistic addiction to find the void.

It seems strange to ignore all the positives one could experience before their cessation. In fact, one of the reasons we fine cessation to be bad is because it deprives us of a valuable life. However, if the good itself doesn't exist, then the lack of a harm that takes it away doesn't seem to matter a lot. We (rightly, in my view) spend our lives trying to conserve and regain the good of happiness that can make life an ineffably valuable experience. But I do acknowledge that this isn't always possible, which is why I think that people should be able to find a graceful exit if things turn irreversibly bad. Hope you have a nice day!
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by withcaremorality »

Dontaskme wrote: Sat Apr 23, 2022 5:59 am
jayjacobus wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 5:57 pm
That is a half hearted way of looking at life.
That's probably because in life there are two sides to every story...

1: is Pain

2: is absence of Pain

Choose your pleasure...and then decide if it's worth the price tag...does the price tag match the product. That's always worth weighing up...before we go messing around with other sentient life forms, as if we were some kind of Frankenstein monster god...or something worse.

Intelligent people have stopped procreating anyway...that's just a fact.
Truly intelligent people recognise the light amidst the darkness. There's happiness and its absence, and while I disagree with the claim that life is always good, I also don't see any basis for sacrificing all value at the altar of unmitigated pessimism. Preventing/eliminating all the positives is a cost too high.
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Re: The Goodness of Existence

Post by withcaremorality »

Dontaskme wrote: Fri Apr 22, 2022 7:34 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu Apr 21, 2022 4:27 pm We don't choose to be born but, once we are, we learn how to live. If we were never born, we would never learn anything.
We learn to die. Death is our only achievement in life.

That's the stark, raw reality, some people refuse to face. The void is the only reality there is. Striving for achievement is like filling nothingness with nothingness.

No one learns how to live...no more than one learns how to breathe...you are life being lived, and it's all nothing..

Being alive can be immeasurably majestic, provided one has access to the right perspective. I hope that more people will have it. Our achievement is our ability to stay resilient in order to discover the indescribable value of the happiness that comes from meaningful relationships and the pursuit of knowledge. The void reminds us of the potent good that can and does exist.

We learn to live as well.
Last edited by withcaremorality on Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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