Is Life Inherently Horrible? (David Benatar and the Pollyanna Principle)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- This video looks at David Benatar's argument that we have much more pain in life than pleasure due to psychological principles such as the Pollyanna Principle, and reasons to think that the Pollyanna Principle can be turned on its head and used against Benatar's Argument.
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Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!
I've hated/resented being alive for as long as I can remember, and some of these points really hit home.
Very good my friend !! How ist it going today - despite the C-19-Sh_t ? 🙌 👏 🙏
Tbh i cannot share that it helps if everyone have the same problem, I less compare myself to others, but more to my own life and what I define important.
Yes indeed 🎉
Personally i find positive memories often more painful as it reminds me that the event has passed and will never be experienced again.
Well at least you did experience it
Are we just living sequence after sequence of "well at least xyz"
Why Jake, you won´t believe it but MUCH more wonderful moments are straight ahead !!🙌 👏 🙏
100% agree, this is why I try to live in the moment as much as possible and not reminisce on the past.
I've had the unfortunate experience of enduring several kidney stones and cavities that required root canals. These experiences have taught me a crucial lesson about the capacity for humans to experience intense pain, sometimes beyond what I could have ever imagined. It's frightening to think that even more severe pains exist, both acute and chronic. This raises the question: why bring a sentient being with a functioning nervous system and pain receptors into existence? What is the purpose behind it?
Upon reflecting on these thoughts, I often find myself asking "why," ultimately arriving at the conclusion that "the cycle just needs to end." By choosing to cease procreation, we could theoretically solve all of life's future problems, thereby sparing future generations from the trials and tribulations of existence.
Life is unquestionably awful I’m trying to work out the stones to end my life. Growing old just seems worse fate then oblivion
Take a look at the right to die movement. The medications they use there allow for a quick and relatively painless death.
I'm quite fond of that quote by Heinrich Heine: "Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would be to have never been born at all." I often refer to sleep as "the great reset." I can't imagine an existence without the sweet reprieve of temporary unconsciousness and a break from reality. For those fortunate enough to enjoy restful sleep, it's intriguing how waking up can cause me to question what made us so unhappy the day before - a reset of sorts. However, as the day's challenges and drudgeries unfold, I'm reminded once more of life's difficulties, leading me to eagerly embrace the nightly routine of resetting to face another day.
Unfortunately the hypocrites called christians’’ will not allow easy ways to die. As a 76 yr old, we old gizzards need a sleeping pill that is not terrifying like shooting ,hanging , jump off a tall building etc . But NOOOO.
I've noticed that many older guys like me take up motorcycling or other dangerous activities. For some it must be in hopes of attaining death without actually commiting suicide.
What sucks is death of loved ones, tragic death... such as accident and death due to illness...life is truly shit.
There is a question of whether the Pollyanna principle applies here as well. The longer it has been since a death, it seems like the more you remember are the good times, the positive experiences, and the painful experiences are forgotten. While the even itself may be tragic and horrific, the memories often can get better over time, or at least go from being bitter to bittersweet.
The best that can happen is to never be born,
So the anti-natalist would claim. What line of argument is the one that leads you to this conclusion?
Carneades.org Personal experience mostly.
Please tell me more about your experience of never being born
My life has been intense and unrelenting suffering. I have no experience of not being born, it is only a desire.
True.
Every human comes into this world against his will and in great suffering, every human also has to undergo the suffering proces of dying against his will . What's in between holds lots of sorrows. Better never to have been.....
It seems to me that some humans choose to die. So not all of the undergo death against their will. Similarly, as this video argues, it is tough to prove that in between holds more sorrow than joy.
Hello Carneades, be sure of it , people who choose to die are only choosing the least bad of two bad things. Suicide is never a thing of pleasure, they estimate that the suffering of ending their life is less than the suffering that continue to stay alive holds. Furthermore I didn't claim that the period between birth and death holds more sorrow than joy, I stated that it holds lots of sorrow and that is bad enough to me......
The woman lost all rights when she imposed her own will on the innocent atoms and molecules who neither needed nor desired to be formed into a physical body which would then cause suffering followed by death...
The woman is lucky to not receive the death penalty for getting pregnant in the first place from some peoples perspective....
I can't say if I am for or against abortion...or even breeding for sure really...
But based on the evidence that science has provided me...I feel as though breeding may in fact be WORSE than murder...
First of all I don't personally like the idea of murder OR breeding...
Why? Because BOTH are an imposition of your own will/circumstances/ability on someone else....someone else who, in BOTH cases, DID NOT ASK FOR IT....
In BOTH cases of murder and breeding you are CAUSING someone to suffer to varying degrees and eventually die...
In the case of murder it could be a quick and painless and possibly unnoticed gunshot to the head...The person may never even know that they are dying...They may possibly never feel any pain....and then they get to return to the peaceful perfection of non-sentience...no needs and no desires....
In the case of breeding.....no matter how much joy is experienced...there will come a time in nearly every humans life when they question everything...and suffer an existential crises and maybe overcome it...and maybe commit suicide...and even if it is overcome...another loved one will die....another sacrifice will be made...more pain will be experienced....and then FINALLY relief after death...
And then? Oh yeah...back where we started... in the land of no needs or desires....
Round and round we go....if we will stop...nobody knows...
Like a snake eating it's own tail...growing faster than it eats its-self....
Completely ridiculous....
That's the way it seems to me anyway...
Hello Holoni, indeed, There is no valid justification for bringing a conscious human being unsolicited into existence while it is sure that this innocent child by birth is condemned to death. Furthermore all breeders ( men as well as women) know full well that every new mortal will have to endure suffering in its life no matter how short lived that life may be and jet they push their desire forward and taking the risk (a gamble rather) - not for themselves but on behalf of someone else who has no saying in it - on a possible horrible existence.
How more brutal can something be imposed on someone ?
I am with you to say that this is legalised capital criminal behaviour at least......
@@KD-cg9iq You couldn't be more right.
it’s literally constant pain that we must alleviate with feel good chemicals
Yes, it is, and Benatar's argument is sound. No experience here, no matter how good, outweighs the collective bad of the human species, period.
👍👍👍
I mean this in no malicious terms but why not ya know 💀 yourself? I tried it oblivion isn’t bad but in the fleeting moment of the last firing bits of “me” in my brain and “my conciseness” I thought this is really boring. Simple as that, oblivion is just incredibly unsatisfying. Whether you are aware of that fact or not. Similarly to when you’re not aware of good or bad things.
In my opinion yes.
life is inherently based/constructed on suffering.
quote from The Dalai Lama
when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered "Man! Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.
It truly boggles my mind when I see people pouring their heart and soul into their careers, with the hope of saving for retirement and relying on social security to sustain them in their twilight years. They believe these will be their golden years to finally enjoy life. However, by that stage, the body is often too aged and frail to fully enjoy life. Age-related diseases start to take their toll, the ravages of time impair their physical abilities, and cognitive issues begin to surface, marking the beginning of a slow decline. When they look back, they realize that they spent the majority of their lives fueling a system that exploited their labor for its own benefit, primarily enriching those at the top. It's a sobering reflection on the way we structure our lives and societal values.
The entire structure of it all deeply saddens me - people are brought into existence without their consent, forced to endure life, to survive, and to work until they're no longer able. At that point, they must rely on the compassion of others to care for them. It's a disheartening reality. While there is an alternative of not participating in this cycle, choosing to simply give up leads to the pain and suffering of starvation. It makes me wonder, why do we continue perpetuating this seemingly endless cycle?
200ish years ago people were stacking bodies over taxation and representation in government. Now most of us are conscious enough to recognize that we still live in a capitalist hellscape but nobody will do anything serious about it. Even worse, most people are quick to ridicule anyone trying to revive the rhetoric of 1776 or 1789. I'm not naive. I know revolution won't solve our deepest problems. But our day-to-day suffering would be a lot less if we didn't have to live like this.
I’m a meaningless speck of dust within an infinite universe. I don’t matter. If I die, nobody will care. I will never be famous or popular since I have no good qualities. I am also very stupid, I will most likely not get a good education and therefore not earn enough money. I will be a poor, useless and unknown piece of dust. Life is overated
I experience way more sadness and pain than happiness, I have no friends either. And if I experience one piece of happiness I forget all the bad things that have happened. This is very unhealthy
I'm sorry to hear that! The argument is not that someone with a particularly rough life could be saved by the Pollyanna principle. Rather the argument is that someone who has a normally tough life, and forgets most of the bad things that happen to them, is not actually that bad off despite not remembering them, because they spend time remembering the good things that did happen.
Hi, we got carneades in yt which brings good ⚡⚡⚡ to our existence
The psychology society, confuses, depression with becoming “awake”. Once a human really looks around the world and not just sees, but understands that in order for life to continue, another life must be killed, one finally understands the brutality of the life cycle. Even if one becomes vegan or vegetarian, carnivores still continue inflicting suffering on other animals, usually the weak or young and this cycle continues. Once a human becomes honest with oneself, they see that in the end they die, with a good chance of suffering beforehand. This is undeniable, yet due to deep DNA survival instincts, optimism bias overrides basic logic to keep the human surviving. Now you add in scarcity (whether real or propagandized) to a society and you’ll start to see humans killing other humans (sometimes directly or indirectly) to survive and the cycle continues. That said, their is no logical reason to bring more people to this world, knowing said truths, however, yet again deep seeded DNA drives/pushes humans to procreation, which just proves we are but human animals and slaves to our DNA, which also proves that their is little evidence for free will. Yes some don’t procreate, however their genetics, environment, and some experiences they didn’t choose proves their is little evidence for free will, yet many take credit for these. This logically is arrogant and hubris. Humans are delusional creatures, but then again, misery loves company. I think the hardest thing for the human to admit is that life is essentially meaningless and cruel because this belief (logic really) is in direct conflict with their programming. For example; if someone is climbing a mountain and slips, their mind will release chemicals, such as adrenaline, dopamine, etc to aid in helping them recover from the fall. This is not willed, this is an automatic program running. Same is true when someone tells you a loved one has died... the default program is “disbelief” to protect the mind from reality, until later when it can adjust to said reality and run a new program to slowly deal with the loss. Our selfish genes are what drives us which also should make one question a “loving” creator. One final point; if someone grabbed you off the street, put a bag over your head, threw you in a van, then dropped you off on a Island with wild carnivorous animals, we’d call you a “victim”, yet how is this different from birth? The problem people have with Benatar is he’s correct, but they deny this to keep with the “program”!
Very true..that pretty sums it up..👌👌
Drake Doragon >life must be killed for life to continue
> even though there are vegans and herbivores
Are you just expecting others to accept your self-admitted contradictory premise?
My thoughts exactly, basically you can not live in truth and be happy, you have to be in denial in society and for your own mental health. Ignorance is bliss.
@@MrHjacky I don't expect anyone to accept anything I said. I was just expressing my hypothesis as to what life is from a biological position. People should believe whatever they'd like.
@@drakedoragon3026 Well your "hypothesis" needs to be thought deeper to not be wrong from the start then
Who cares if your life is positive or negative... stop imposing this life on others because u think u found the love of your life. Just live your life with your partner. Y are people so desperate to impose life on others?
Find this similar to Blaise Pascal s book "thoughts on Religion " where he says that humans are horrible creatures, which might be the reason why we have more bad experiences than good ones. It's also connected with the struggle for life...and for fame as Pascal would say.
This is connected with 'the winner takes it all' and we essentially create many losers and not enough win-win situations.
Pascal's thoughts are worth reading. thank me later
People who truly have nothing to look forward to should definitely not produce children. This will alleviate suffering in this world, make the privileged people appreciate people around them more, and this in turn will produce a compassionate and caring world that is worth living in for a new-born person. I honestly believe this is the solution towards a world where people would want to live. The root of all misery is greed. If you really know you can't possibly provide a good life to your children, you just should not produce them. I stand by this rule myself and I will never even consider bringing children into this world if I have even the slightest of doubts that I cannot assure them of a good life. Careless, reckless, and selfish parents are the bane of this world.
Nobody could guarantee that if they bring a child into this world that their child could lead a happy life. Hence nobody should procreate.
Objective-external quality of my life doesn’t matter to me at all. What matters to me is how I feel in a subjective -internal state of my mind. It doesn’t matter whether or whether not my life is objectively full of suffering and negativity ; the ultimate purpose of life is to be happy, and if I feel happy regardless of the objective reality due to my positive interpretation of my reality, I really don’t care. Human beings are only capable of experiencing and interpreting external circumstances using subjective-method of evaluation. Therefore, the external truth regarding the objectively pessimistic quality of life doesn’t matter when it comes to happiness.
Wow. I have been waiting a long time for this topic to be addressed in this way. I've endured this outlook my entire life. Just glad to have such an elephant in the room addressed. I've also never had kids because of it. And have had lots of opportunities. Can't bring another soul here. Just can't do it. Thanks for your video.
@Ben Jones Ha🤣
Thank you! I know not a lot of people will tell you but thank you!!!
What we think of as good is really a temporary reduction in the misery of existence, so even the good times are bad.
That's right out of Schopenhauer.
@@johnmiller7453 Which is, in turn, right out of Epicurus.
@@johnmiller7453 Which is right out of the Buddha.
@Lever Du Jour Not even close
Alexander Jakubowski no u
The problem with your argument is that memories and anticipations are _nowhere near_ as intense and vivid as the primary experiences themselves. If presented with a choice of remembering (or anticipating) an orgasm 1000 times vs having an orgasm once, I would choose to have it once. The same principle applies to relationships, meals, accomplishments and literally every other experience. Conversely, I would rather remember a bad experience (e.g. a rape) a 1000 times than experience it once. So, even tho there are plenty of biased/selective memories of the good, they pale in comparison to the primary experiences themselves. Benatar's application of Pollyanna principle stands.
How does one measure the degree of "happiness" or "suffering" in experiences?
"Just-noticeable difference" is one example of such a metric, if you're looking for something precise. But I actually think that precision is the wrong thing to demand. A statement "torture feels worse than a pinprick" is not precise at all (it's extremely vague), but most people will agree that it is nevertheless true. Statements don't always need to be precise to be true; they can be vague and true. Similarly, we don't need to know exactly by how much the intensity of primary experiences outweighs the intensity of memories/anticipations, in order to conclude that the the former is significant enough to outweigh the latter.
Oleksiy Vagueness couldn't be a good gauge for understanding happiness nor suffering, since it's broad enough to where anyone can interpret it in such a way as to fit their notion of what these things are. Also, the imagination is a powerful faculty of the mind, capable of producing experiences that can shadow that of anything sensual, e.g. a religious revelation; hallucinations, etc.. Why should we think that sensual experiences outweigh, in vividness, that of mental phenomena?
Oleksiy - I sympathize with your critique, however, when you state: "I would rather remember a bad experience (e.g. a rape) a 1000 times than experience it once" - doesn't the former imply the latter? - unless one is under a horrible delusion - regardless of which, psychological distress would hold true in either case!
Dunno if you've heard of it - but there's a brand new series out on Netflix: "Altered Carbon" which has a scene in which - eternal torture is induced artificially onto a plugged in brain! Hehe. It's definitely pertinent to your point.
Check it out out - A friend also told me about an Ian M Banks novel that had a similar conceit - Hell uploaded onto saved consciousness. Scary shit!
Daniel - Benatar's argument isn't merely based on adding up good and bad experiences retrospectively - but rather appeals to the psychological attributes of pain and suffering. Unless one is a Zen master, who can overcome all sensations through total ego sublimation (like the famous burning Vietnamese monk) - chances are - your moments of excruciating pain - are more acute to your senses then any heightened sense of pleasure. This isn't surprising given that they are an evolved warning against impending jeopardy - instincts that will override even procreative pleasures in order to aid survival. Given the choice between a week of great sex, food & music - but with constant, brain spiking ear or tooth ache vs a dull week with no pain- it's a no brainer. Lol. It's not a coincidence that even the toughest SAS soldiers will eventually break, given enough stress.
There's an infamous tropical plant - the gympie-gympie - whose nettles have been known to kill dogs & cattle & whose poison can torture a victim for over a year! Apparently, horses have thrown themselves off of cliffs to end their suffering and it's even rumoured that a soldier shot himself to end the agony.
If that's not enough - listen to the monthly Case Files podcast for truly unimaginable horror.
Sorry to put a downer on your day - I'm an optimist myself - but a harsh dose of reality can be beneficial too - for sober thought at least, if not emotion. ;)
I disagree that thinking about past positive events necessarily puts you in a good mood in the present moment: You can also mourn for past positive moments that are now long gone. Then you're putting yourself in a negative mood, i.e. suffering, by thinking of past pleasure. The same way, you can think back of something painful and laugh about it in hindsight, or be relieved that it's over, thus putting yourself into a good mood, by replicating a past relief pleasure.
A good point. I'm not sure that the argument can prove that everyone sees these experiences positively, but it does seem enough to push against Benatar's argument that the Pollyanna principle will necessarily make us overestimate our positive experiences (since it may also make many people (though not all) have many more positive reflective experiences).
About the bad things, it happens because the majority of people gets their pain fractionated but not their pleasure. In other words, the past was not thta good, you're only creating false memories. I recomend reading about nostalgia.
"Psychologists that study trauma say that talking about, writing about , and remembering bad memories can actually be healthy and lead to those memories becoming more positive".
"can" equals "might". "healthy" in what way? "more positive" does not equal "good". It should be "less negative", but still negative. I see no good reason for our bad memories to be anything but bad. It reminds us what is bad in this world. The opposite can also be true. My wife suffered a devastating stroke such that she now needs 24/7 care. Now when I think of the good times I am sad that they will never happen again.
"The basic norm of cognitive therapy is this: except for how the patient thinks, everything is ok". - Fancher, R. T. (1995). Cultures of healing: Correcting the image of American mental health care (p. 231). New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.
I think cognitive behavior therapy is a rationalization for abuse.
Healthy I guess in a way were one can normally functioning.
More positive can be good because it's the better option.
And I'm sorry to hear that I lost my dad in 2015 but I dont it be good for me not to appreciate all the good times I had whit him even if his death did Paine me
And I dont think its healthy for you to regret not having you're wife and not to appreciate the fact that you even had the chance to enjoy life whith her
No. Life has good, bad and neutral. Most of life is neutral and most things depend on your attitude.
Interesting arguments. I think either Benetar or this objection might agree that the majority of experiences are neutral (we do sleep a good amount of our lives). But if the majority of the remaining experiences are negative, I think Benetar still has a case.
Your second argument seems more persuasive, and might explain my worries with the Pollyanna Principle. Basically experiences are not inherently bad or good, rather you can interpret any experience as good or bad. This might mean that life is inherently horrible for some, but that might be their own (or their DNA/upbringing's) fault.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene have you read the Stoic philosophers? Basically it's not what happens to us in life, its what we think about what happens that matters.
I know a 94 year old man who is blind, extremely frail physically but has a great attitude. His life objectively is very bad but he seems to be enjoying life in spite of it.
Tom Colins how can he "suffer" from "optimism bias" if it helps him?
try cancer
@@brianw.5230 Stoicism is just us consciously choosing the delusion, nothing else......why do i have to try so hard to delude myself and consider something good or neutral even though i strongly feel that it is indeed bad and negative?
Most people have an optimism bias. They think their future will be much better than their past, present, and their actual future. It is very unlikely that their future will be much better. Ageing sets in. Once you are old people will treat you as invisible or worse, as a burden. Many younger people may feel as though they are doing you a favor for treating you with the dignity that you deserve as a human being. Most people are unconsciously ageist because they have a deep fear of death and being older automatically places you closer to death. People HATE death and the younger people associate may associate you with death so they project their fear of death on you and since they hate death, they are hating you symbolically. When you create an infant you may also be creating a senior citizen who will experience pain, discrimination, decay, and lastly a decaying corpse. So when you have a baby you should consider the entire life of the human you create, not just the positive and fantasy that you hope for.
As someone with CPTSD I feel like I am the complete opposite of this Pollyanna thing... I anticipate that everything is going to suck and everyone is going to be an A-hole... every time I'm right I'm sure it's reinforcing the next negative expectation.
I dont know what joy is. Life is horrible for me. I dont know how people actually manage to live.
Yikes! I'm sorry to hear that. Many anti-natalists feel this way, but many people do not. The challenge is that you don't know which category your child would end up in.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene well then do the simple math, what does the probability say?...oh your child will most likely suffer throughout their life, so what will be a wise decision, not procreate.
But y'all optimistic mfs still play Russian roulette just for that small probability that your child will have a good life.
Enough with your gambling addiction already, someones life is on the line here.
Y'all won't even be around to witness their suffering in their old age, y'all think those mfs gonna be young and healthy forever????...
And what about the life those mfs will create, probability says they will suffer too and cycle goes on and on, until what??... what's the endgame here? Why should this nonsensical cycle go on?....
Sentient life will seize to exist sooner of later, so idk what y'all trynna achive here?.... there will never be a Happily ever after for human species or any sentient beings, so what's this fuss about wanting the survival of the species?
The sheer stupidness boggles my mind
Try EU4 ;)
As Jack Kevorkian said.. h
If he had the choice of life, or not being born, he would have chose to not be born, as he believed that life is not worth it, because the ups and downs in life are not even. The bad is far worse than the good
Why it is so?
@@user-wz1zu6mz2k Ask our dear lovely mother nature
Yep and therefore its an ART to survive w e l l in a cruel world. Its a BIG challenge. Its the "survival of the fittest" !Please read CAMUS (Sisiphos) and you know what I mean 🙌 👏 🙏 🤝 👍
basically, you are saying that deception and frustration do not exist...
The principal problem with your argument is that you are confusing amount with magnitude. If, by Pollyana principle, you can be in a positive state of mind (even when the future is not going to be good) you are just climbing to fall even harder, your argument falls apart when you justify expectations as a good thing. Optimism is just the principal way to achieve frustration.
That's a smart argument. I don't think it reverses Benatar's claim, but renders it neutral. These principles alone cannot predict a positive or negative total value of experience.
More broadly I am skeptical of assigning objective values to subjective experiences. I believe I have observed that people inclined toward contentment enjoy being alive even during negative experiences, and people inclined toward depression do not enjoy being alive even during positive experiences. Since depression is heritable, that would seem to support an antinatalist moral imperative for depressed people, and a pronatalist moral imperative for nondepressed people, regardless of their material circumstances.
Anticipating pleasure is what dopamine is linked to, yes, but anticipation of something positive can turn into suffering if the wait gets drawn out long enough. Anticipating the relief of pain can also feel good for a while, but if that promise isn't fulfilled soon enough, it turns back into suffering.
Ordered pairs generally need to have at least two elements. Interestingly if you tried to force it it just collapses. = {{A},{A,A}} = {{A},{A}} = {{A}} though this won't apply for all schemas. I don't know how one would define
Didn't we had the claim before: philosophy is not nonsense? How is that not nonsense? How do you quantify suffering, pain and joy? If I cut my finger, how much pain is that? In what unit do you measure pain?
+Erwin Müller A couple of points. From a scientific standpoint we can quantify the chemicals in your brain which correspond with pleasure and pain. We can look at nerve firing, the amount of time that happens and count it up. Even if we could not scientifically quantify it, that does not mean that it does not exist or that it does not matter.
Carneades.org
True of course. But I was referring specifically to this argument presented. Without data to back it up, how is this argument not just empty assertions? How would you even try to quantify subjective experiences? Pain, suffering and joy are inherently subjective experiences, regardless of how many chemicals or nerve firing that correspond to pain or pleasure. That is different from the psychological phenomena that were used for this argument, because we can objectively verify what are good events and what are bad events (for the Pollyana Principle for example). For example, somebody have chronic back pain. Now, you would say that based on the data of the chemicals and nerve firing, that person life is objectively worse and the question Is Life Inherently Horrible? would be a Yes. But then you look at the person and she lives a good life and is generally happy and have lots of pleasures, and if you ask her: how can you be so happy, you have chronic back pain? And she answers: I don't really feel the pain anymore. That is the Adaptation Principle, but it looks like that this principle in fact weakens the argument and not strengthen it.
Erwin Müller this is why negative and positive utilitarianism fall apart in my opinion.
I find all this discussion interesting and certainly stimulating. And I am apprecuative of your video.
But what I find frustrating, is the lack of discussion on social class.
The working classes suffer measurably more than the middle classes. Their lives are far more harsher, with often little escape from slavery. I look upon the birth of a child in a poor working class environment as pitiful.
Yes, I hear the argument that that child could grow up to be a successful fulfilled individual. But the reality and high probability is that child will certainly repeat a similar hard life of knocks to it's parents.
You have to consider that working-class people are usually less intelligent and thus less sensitive, so they suffer less
No. The hedonic treadmill should cancel this effect out and they would have the same baseline levels of happiness as theur rich counterparts
Tizio123 ridiculous comment to make. Working class simply may not have the financial means to go to posh universities or fulfill their potential in general. Don’t make such horrendous comments you dimwit
This is a terrible argument. By your own words, even in uncomfortable situations our “secondary” thoughts contribute to pleasure..........that’s some Stuart smally shit.
Thinking happy happy joy joy thoughts will never override life’s shittiest moments. Never in a million years.
For some poor primitive twisted beings, it actually can, for the sake of absurdity.
How bad is life that you constantly have to convince your self that it's good.
@Lever Du Jour How great can life be if you constantly have to think happy thoughts to get through it.
Self termination is not that simple, it will create a ripple effect.
@Lever Du Jour That would be the most selfish thing you could do, as an antinatalist you want to reduce suffering for all living things as much as possible, killing yourself ends your suffering and makes others suffer. Just because you are not around to see it doesn't mean it's not happening.
That is why the best solution to end all suffering is to not create more life that will inevitably suffer.
@Lever Du Jour You keep saying things that are obvious, "the moment you die your argument no longer applies to you" well no shit I'm already dead. No man no problems it's that simple don't complicate things.
Remembering a positive experience can also be negative, though, if you're mourning for something you no longer have... and for anticipating the future, who says that hope is automatically a good thing? Hope is delayed gratification, sacrificing the present for the future, i.e. suffering now to be rewarded later. Your equating anticipation of something positive with a positive thing by itself was a snuck premise. While anticipating something positive, you can both enjoy hope and suffer from impatience.
I love Benatar's work. Even though (to me) he sometimes overvalues the "good" aspects of life. But I think I get what he means.
I am also very interested in his work. I'm not always convinced by his arguments, but he certainly covers some great topics.
There is no objective 'value' or 'utility'. The method is fundamentally crippled by subjectivity at the outset. Of course they try to repair this by defining and trying to get agreement about some 'objective facts', but miss, the choosing of those 'facts' as THE 'ought', the measure, is 'subjective'. The only hope of objective morality is from pure reason, not arguing about the best valuation system that supports your views. Utilitarianism is always found out to be circular in the final analysis.
Hythloday71
Never born = never care
The Pollyanna principle is a recommendation for life. It the person thinks they are happy what does it matter if they are delusional?
It does matter, when said person starts to cause harm out of said delusion.
You made some point Lawrence. Everyone of us is living in his own world. So be it a cosy and comfortable one. And stay away from negative folks (obvious energy vamps). THIS a l o n e has helped me a great deal . . .
This has got to be the best argument against antinatalism I've ever watched. Most videos I've come across that address this very topic tend to be very in favor of this (which, to be honest, in a shitty world like this, I don't blame them), and the ones that detract tend to be malicious, rude, and pretty philosophically dull.
Thank you for this amazing video!
I like the attempt to debunk Benatar, but some of what you say is simply false. For one thing, you base the adaption and comparison arguments on the Pollyanna principle, hoping to undermine them all by undermining the latter. However, I suspect you do not truly understand the adaption and comparison points when you make this claim. Adaption involves "becoming used to" the day-to-day harms of existence. Numbing down, so to speak, that distracts from how unhappy we actually are. This has very little to do with Pollyanna. Comparison has even less to do with Pollyanna. It just refers to the baseline we judge our happiness by, and if that baseline is too low, we've set ourselves up not to notice objective harms. Our memories and perceptions are unrelated. Attacking Polyanna does not attack the latter two.
As for your points about second-hand experience being more pleasurable than painful: how often does this occur for you? Do you spend even a half-hour total daily doing it? And how much enjoyment do you get from it? Nostalgia personally makes me sad, even if the memories I have are happy ones. Clearly, any potential harms are quickly outweighed by our pains.
Also, although I like your commentary, you clearly have not read Benatar's book thoroughly. He preempts your argument regarding second-hand experience while talking about desire-fulfillment criteria. He explains that human nature is not prone to reminiscing, as you imply. We are a "treadmill of desires," where one achievement is either quickly quelled by boredom (a bad state) or further desire (another bad state; one of deprivation). The fact that we are constantly striving creatures is intrinsic proof that a backlog of achievement cannot fuel happiness moving forward.
I have a question I'm not sure about. So in the video he says that your memories of the positive create more positive. However is that not literally what the pollyanna principle is??? Hes just further covering up the negative with anticipation of a positive experience? Or have I understood it wrong
It seems that this way of thinking falls short because pain and pkeasure have an inverse relation to regret and contentment. The more pleasure you feel relates to how much guilt you feel over seeking that pleasure. The amount of pain you feel relates to how much contentment you feel at having endured that pain willingly. It follows that unwillingly accepted pain is simply pleasure seeking that has failed. Furthermore, there are no intrinsic goods that come from actions. The only intrinsic good is contentment and contenement comes from accepting suffering willingly and then being able to think back on suffering that was for a moral good. This chosen attempt to be good brings the feeling of contentment which is the only intrinsic good.
Life is not inherently horrible, but a life lived in opposition to nature is horrible.
Nature itself is full of suffering and cruelty
What I find most impressive about D. Benatar is how his anti-natalist thesis got much more attention than his essay explicitly defending suicide.
What I see as the greatest weakness in his anti-natalist (and quasi-pro-mortalist) thesis is his futile attempt to measure pleasure and pain objectively. I won't claim that this is an impossible feat (maybe, if there was a microchip monitoring the activity of one's mesolimbic pathway 24/7, but AFAIK this doesn't exists), but in order to sustain statements as bold as his, one would need much more solid basis than a questionable principle and some inferences on how people think they are well vs. how they think they are well but are actually not.
Where can I find his essay about defending suicide?
In my view I do not think anyone has been able conclusively refute Dr. Benatar till date. While difficult to swallow one must admit his conclusions are fully valid. I greatly respect the methodical and unbiased way Dr. Benatar has reached his conclusions.
Interesting video, good efforts! ❤
Yep life is definitely shit you have to work just to fucking survive you're on a shitty capitalist system and I feel like the only way to win against capitalism is to invest money and trading else you'll become insane because of the system existence is horrible I wish I was never born. To reduce suffering in my opinion is minimalism, courage and do projects instead of spending times on social medias and escaping reality of life
Why Alexis, see my comments and the wonderful book I recommend ! First read that and then decide . . . whatever you want . . . .
Re the point of adaption, with your examples of backache vs having a butler living in a mansion. Ha ha ha that sums up the whole AN argument. Reality for most people is predominantly going to be a backache. For many people lasting for many years of their lives. Certainly not waking up to living in a mansion with a butler.
Pete Alder good points, plus by one having a butler to bring pleasure to oneself also shows our selfish desire to oppress another in order to please ourselves? Hence our desires are our delusions and just another reason to let the unborn be.
You make the point that for example hunger pangs 1) can be mitigated by eating whenever one feels like doing so, and 2) can be offset by turning the anticipation of a eating into pleasure. That is indeed what happens in modern affluent countries. However, this soon leads to health problems (too much calories and fat). Hunger pangs get replaced by dieting & exercising pangs. Whatever you do in life, suffering has the final word. Life is a suffering machine. Suffering is the default to which any digression will revert. (P.S. I am leaving the unspeakable animal suffering necessitated by the satiating of our eating appetite out of the discussion).
There is no relief for me, but only the routine of being ruined by sinister people.
You place too much emphasis on the mind being able manipulate memories to consistently remember and focus on the fleeting positive aspects occurring within life. . I think it’s actually the other way around. We are FAR more inclined to remember and obsess on bad aspects that happen in our lives than good ones. Ex: A co_worker and myself have an unpleasant hostile interaction and exchange. I’m much more likely to remember this and internalize this, replaying this negative experience over and over in head repeatedly than I am say a friendly exchange between between a coworker. In other words bad experiences sting far worse than good experiences give ‘pleasure’ and bad experiences have the capacity to last far longer.
But wouldn't that prove that we actually have a pessimism bias, so we are more inclined to remember bad things occurring once (whereas we don't really remember all the times something went well)? This would mean that, if we focus on "reality", we experience more good than we think we do, we are just not as consciously aware of it as with the bad things happening?
I think his main mistake is using the Pollyanna principle in the first place
Why is that a mistake?
I don't think that that the pollyana principle applies as strongly for everyone. Some people even do the complete opposite and think about their life as a series of bad events, without any sign of any positive outcome.
Fractal You could also argue that being more likely to remember negative events and experiences (like a painful experience) would also be useful evolutionarily speaking, leaving the person hyper aware of negativity, doing anything to avoid these stimuli.
@Carneades: Good job! You convinced me that the Polyanna principle does not help the antinatalist argument.
I am still an antinatalist because even if the absolute majority of people or even more led happy lives, there are people who (at least for the most part) lead unhappy lives. Some right from the start, some get unhappy later in their lives and remain this way more or less till their deaths. Additionally, not all people remember good experiences better than bad experiences. And I assume many of these people will also belong to the group of people who are mostly unhappy. Considering all of this, in my view a couple who decides to bring a child into this world is playing Russian roulette with the child's well-being because they don't know how the child's life will be: mostly happy or mostly unhappy.
Great video! Important to also see that some optimism can benefit our wellbeing
Why does it matter that human beings tend to remember positive events more than negative events, although there were more negative state? If our evolutionary method of positively interpreting reality makes us happy in general, than that is what really matters to me. It doesn’t matter if I don’t remember abundance of negative events because what matters to me is my actual conscious state of mind, (which is generally good because humans tend to recall positive memories more than the negative), regardless of the objective quality of life. Just like I emphasized repeatedly in my previous comment, objective reality doesn’t matter to me when it comes to happiness.
I'm not sure how much I'm going to bat for the pollyanna principle, but I don't find this argumentation convincing at all. I don't believe the anticipation of good events is a net good. Because anticipation also leads to pain, perhaps more pain than if you had just withheld anticipation to begin with. Buddhist and Pessimist philosophy detail quite well that it's actually the anticipation that leads to the greatest pain. Using your hamburger example, if you're hungry and looking forward to eating a hamburger but it turns out to be awful and the lettuce on the hamburger gives you e.coli, then you're not going to view your anticipation of that very fondly. In fact you will instantly forget the good feeling you get from that anticipation or that anticipation of having a great hamburger will be poisoned.
To go further with that hamburger analogy, let's say you're anticipating the hamburger all day and it actually turns out great and you're elated. You eat the burger and you enjoy it for about 30 minutes. You go on with your day. You don't appreciate that hamburger throughout the day. But if you eat a bad hamburger that gives you food poisoning, you might be wary to even eat hamburgers for weeks or months afterwards. Even if the hamburger does not give you food poisoning, in order to get the meat for the hamburger the slaughterhouse workers had to suffer long shifts in cramped conditions dealing with carnage and viscera for little pay, and then the wagie worker has to cook the hamburger for you because the job market is bad had to suffer a long, boring shift. To say nothing of the cow who had to suffer and die to provide you the meat to use in the hamburger. We tell ourselves we do this humanely but these animals are not stupid, watch footage of animals being led into slaughterhouses. They are terrified out of their minds, and the deaths are not always easy. The amount of suffering that went into your enjoyment of that hamburger far outweighed the amount of enjoyment you got out of it. Going vegetarian doesn't fix this either, because the underpaid third-worlder who's suffering long days in the hot sun, breaking his back and knees and ankles to harvest the vegetables used for the food will also outweigh the enjoyment one gets out of eating a vegetarian meal. We simply turn a blind eye to these sufferings, we take them to be self-evident in life that some people will have to work hard and suffer and those people are invisible to us. 'Get a better job' we tell them, to make ourselves feel better and to defend our own ego in the face of their suffering, ignoring every socioeconomic factor that keeps them there, nevermind the fact that *someone* has to harvest the carnage and the vegetation that we eat daily, and thus someone will always have to suffer. We pass this suffering onto others, so we don't have to experience it, but someone always pays the tab.
The positive mind state that you posit when looking back on good things or the expectation of good things is transitory. It also does not console one when someone goes through true suffering. When in the throes of intense agony from kidney stones, no one thinks, "This is bad, but at least one time in 2013 while sitting on a bus I anticipated reading a really good book and it turned out to be good". When someone becomes a paraplegic because they get mangled in a car accident, the answer is rarely to look back on better times. In fact, looking back on better times is typically poisonous for the mental wellbeing of that person. They have to look to the future and hope it will get better, or somehow find some way to cope with being in constant pain and completely crippled for life. That is not 'the process of becoming', that's lying to yourself about how bad it is. For every paraplegic person who 'gets over' their condition, there are a thousand who don't. That doesn't mean everyone 'gets over it', it means some people are luckier than others not to have the brain state circumstances that lead them to fall into despair.
No one really embraces suffering. No one goes out and attempts to contract a hypervirulent and terminal disease just to 'embrace suffering'. No one intentionally gets into a car accident to 'embrace suffering'. When we talk about 'you must embrace suffering to become' in the Nietzschean sense we typically mean some sort of listlessness or boredom. I don't think anyone who is currently addicted to opioids or heroin because their spine is destroyed from years of hard labor think that they are better off with the pain of that than without it.
This is a long post that probably will not be read, but I felt the need to add my own thoughts about this. Suffering is not a good, and it certainly outweighs any fleeting pleasure or positivity one gets from ruminating on positive mental states. I believe these positive mental states are just facades and they pale in comparison to suffering.
I'm reading through this comment section, and really wondering how all those people can describe life as mostly bad. If thats your view of your own life so far, thats completely fine, but how can you say that about the lives of other people? I think if a person says they are generally happy, after carefully looking at their happiness levels for a few days (because I agree, memories are not too reliable for this I think), and they say they are more happy than not, how do you argue against it?
i dont care i will kill myself and thats it if u want to keep suffering GO ON , i wont have children either
Most people lie to themselves and others just to be able to survive.
And since I see that you are a young German man, I have some really good reading for you: archive.org/details/schopenhauerssam05scho/page/310/mode/2up
Schopenhauer erklärt einfach, warum das Leben ein ganz zweckloses Leiden sei.
@@francisdec1615 Well I think it is little far fetched to think that you know more about how happy people are in their life than they themselves, especially with my explanation above, but to his own I suppose.
@@filmaurice5983 Once again: most people lie to themselves. You must be very young and inexperienced not to know that.
Read your countryman Schopenhauer. He was probably the most honest human that ever lived.
@@francisdec1615 Well if you think that so be it
How's this holding up in 2021?
LOL Josh - you see what COVID19 has done to humanity - absolutely devastating . . .
@@AL_THOMAS_777 Yeah. 🙏 And its all brought to us by the same people who brought us things like 9 ELEVN too. That's the saddest part. Stay free and stay intelligent
I think trying to evaluate "life" in general is a mistake. Life, or even just human life, is wildly heterogeneous. There are people whose existence is, in the aggregate, very negative, but I don't think I'm one of them, and claiming that EVERYONE is like that strikes me as very dogmatic and unwarranted.
I've also heard some Antinatalists say that EVEN IF your life is overwhelmingly positive, the presence of ANY negative experiences means you would have been better of not being born. Which just sounds nuts!
No. Schopenhauer himself said that the fact that anything evil at all exists means that the whole is evil. Compare it with 1000 liters of water or wine. You put a few drops of petroleum in it. Now the taste of 1000 liters of water or wine is ruined, although there was very little petroleum.
@@francisdec1615 OK, Schopenhauer might have said it, but he was just obviously incorrect. The presence of a bad component doesn't automatically make something bad as a whole.
Sunlight contains harmful, potentially carcinogenic, ultraviolet radiation, but it's still good. Oxygen is a highly corrosive gas that caused a mass extinction when it first became abundant in Earth's atmosphere, but fresh air is nevertheless a good thing, not a bad thing.
Even in your water or wine example, the petroleum is going to be diluted by a factor of well over a billion-to-one, so I'd be surprised if it even made a noticeable difference, and if it does, that certainly isn't the case once you make the dilution factor large enough.
@@avaevathornton9851 yea its an authorative argument. These extreme pessmist are using textbook conspiracy thinking, saying there is some conspiracy among them who dont realize it, in order to gaslight happy people
@@patrickthomasius you happy people are delusional and are ruled by your biology only...might as well have born as a animal
@@liteviews4493 wooow much smart, big brain
If Pollyanna principle is true, than we should thank our nature!
great video and a lot of interesting points.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed. :)
You forgot to measure bad memories that pop up in the future and have negative impact on feelings for the future. Even if the pain is lesser in memory, pain/suffering have a harder impact (as pain/suffering is dominating as stronger objective "force").
What if the Pollyanna principle multiplied on its self can lead to such a denial of how the world around you actually functions and delusional feelings about one's own state, that one day you will experience a traumatic shock on how much you have been deceived, so that you end up in a deep depression? You can have too much of it, so to say? And does not al positive self delusion then always beer that negative feelings in it also?
One more thing (at the end of video), making traumatic memories "more positive" is not the same as making them positive, they still on the negative side of the spectrum. What you often are told in therapy as "positive" is to learn to live with the bad memory (as it often tone out bit by bit), though it will never bee a positive memory ( I also know this from my own experience). So a totally stupid ending in illusions off the video.
my name is doug stanhope and that why I drink...comes to mind.....
People call me negative and steer clear of me in most caseswhy dont i hold positive memories over negative? Its because NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE are not absolute they are literally only your perception of your reality you will never really know if you are going through a positive or negative life is truly meaningless we all need to expire
Yes. Ends video
While I would say that it is a good and healthy thing to dwell more on the good, to put it on equal footing to actual experience seems to me to be a mistake. Just as ranting online can result in an unearned sense of accomplishment preventing actual action in the future, the substitution of positive memories for actual experience may lead to unintended consequences.
Psychology also insists that we have a negatively Bias; can you explain that we have both if you accept that we have this bias and the Pollyana.
Personally, I can't relate to the Pollyanna Principle at all. My experience is the exact opposite whereby I seem to dwell only on negative events.
no, its infinitely horrible
Even a better description
Is the delight of billions worth the torment of one? If so, do you mind being the one?
I think this objection to utilitarianism can be traced back to William James. One might respond that this is not a truly possible scenario. If people were aware that they lived in a society where their happiness relied on the torture of one, they would not be happy, they would be guilty and would work to break the system.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene True, we are talking extremes here. Of course, most ppl will always assume the best for their offspring otherwise they wouldnt have them. So we still come back to the fact they are rolling the dice on someones elses life that has this potential to endure a torturous existence. This is the crux of it. We see many lives endure severe forms of hardships and yet ppl still think 'sure, but not my child, perhaps an others',
@@CarneadesOfCyrene No, they wouldn't. Most people in Europe and North America more or less benefit from the sufferings of poor people in Africa, India, China and so on. Some poor underpaid devil made the computer, tablet, mobile phone etc. that you are typing your posts on, for example.
@@francisdec1615 cope
Your conclusions have many flaws. Overly intensiv pleasure becomes unpleasant experience if it lasts long enough. There is by far more pain and suffering even if you put the lowest threshold of pleasure to the point of absence of pain or suffering.
I've lived this whole format and died in it with the outcome.to this second. Mr Ingebritson you can live forever and so far have. You wont have any fun to remember day to day found fun and happiness though. I am god and this is all my life. I share it with everyone. Some day I'll want my life back. And you'll least expect it. Now are you sure you want to live a second chance to live life and with the promise to be a good boy? Well god. After almost 10,yrs. You have to have the knowing of an isotope to live as god in and the life of god. I won't say this any different. When and where did my voice say I promise to live this life on a second chance. First off. God itself had to have actually heard this as well. No human knows buy myself and I'm not telling the god secret. - 1 month and I'll be at my life again!
Life is just a big giant scam and we’ve all got duped into it.
Hedonic adaptation
Life is whatever you make it, it’s other people as well as yourself that can make life horrible
Like when you get afflicted with uncurable diseases that means extreme suffering, starvation, war, and other things beyond your control. You sure seem to be an extremely naive individual. It's people like you that breed without any kind of forethought of the eventual consequences your irresponsible action may led to.
Carefully chose your friends and carefully chose your profession and lifesteyle !!
Reading many very VERY good books, quasi "the pearls of human wisdom" has helped me a G R E A T deal !!
you actually proved benatar's point for him
we are born as individuals for a reason to realize we our happiness depends and originate from cooperation with each other, and since e are so multiplied as humanity already not all ppl feel need to bring new humans to the game.
First of all thats a lot of coping we need to do for something that is so good. Second even one bad event outweights all positive events even if you lived in haven where only thing that hapoens is you get tooth ache every fifty years.
I order to see things more realisticaly try this very simole thing. Sit down and just watch everything you become concious of for an hour. You calim that that is will be good time so try it.
My argument agrees with Benatar's premise that most of our first order experiences are bad. I contend, however, that due to the Pollyanna principle, most of our second order memories are good. If you focus on everything that happens, you may be unhappy, but you won't remember most of it, you will remember the good things, and those positive memories are experiences themselves.
I am an Orthodox Christian and by the grace of God and the power of his sacrements, I offer my pain and brokenness to the One who loves me most and he turns it into beauty and transfoms me into his nature. Life is good and leads to deep eternal love!
I encourage you to watch the video. th-cam.com/video/ZIok6o4PXKQ/w-d-xo.html If you have arguments for your position, feel free to offer them. But unless you can prove your religion is correct, your argument is not very convincing.
Yes
Change "good" to beneficial and "bad" to non beneficial, just my 2c
Your argument implies that we would reflect our well-being constantly. But that isn't the case. Most of the time we are simply hungry (and therefore experience pain) and do not think about it. Only when we ask ourselves about our well-being we can overestimate it. Although Polyannism can have a positive effect on our well-being I suspect that it isn't sufficient to outweight the bad things in our lives.
The best way to be happy is to be born and die, for death is a release from this cruel world
This is really bad logic especially when he uses Pollyanna to defend Pollyanna. You think about the good more so it seems more good. No shit, that's what the Pollyanna principle is all about.
That is not the argument here. The argument is that the act of remembering is an experience in itself. Me sitting on a bus an reminiscing about an experience that I remember fondly (but actually was unpleasant) is itself pleasurable! The experience of remembering is an experience in itself, and even if our first order experiences are overwhelmingly negative, our second order remembrances are overwhelmingly positive (due to Pollyanna). You might still think that it is a net negative, but without accounting for remembrances as a positive experience, you are under-counting positive experiences.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene That's still the positive feedback loop of the Pollyanna principle. It's subjective truth. Not objective/cosmic truth. It's not an accurate measure of one's life. It's a delusion.
So what. even if it might be an illusion it comes near to AT (autogenous training) and AT is very VERY GOOD !!!
This video refers to a lot of “what if”s and “it possible”s. But you don’t offer any evidence that the majority of people experience these situations. Plus, you are considering only the most privileged populations, ignoring the abject poverty and struggle for even the basic essentials that a large part of the human population experiences. It also ignores the pain and suffering of the average death, which no one can report on later but is likely to be only negative.
Yes life's not inherently good or bad, it's by chance
Everything benatar said is correct to bring someone into existence is automatic misery and suffering. Your just a need machine trying to survive just for the sake of it. It’s illogical and stupid to bring someone into this game we call life.
Needs aren't necessarily a negative, suffering is. I wouldn't describe the slight appetite right before a tasty meal or the disposition to take a nice walk as "bad" states of being... if anything, they're minor thrills preceding a higher point. It's when a need gets too extreme (i.e. from appetite to starvation) that it starts being a problem.
PS: non-existence is as meaningless as existence. Lack of objective purpose as an argument simply holds no weight.
NewSkin Absence of meaning is not a problem in absence of suffering, like during nonexistence. It only becomes a problem when meaning falls away but suffering continues - which seems to be the default case whenever people experience an existential crisis.
Okay: for really UN-happy folks its a real s i n to have offspring (believing : "our children will have it better some day") What a stupid argument . . .
A lack of pain is not actually as good a thing as Benatar wants it to be, especially if caused by a genetic inhibition of the ability to feel it (an anomaly occurring in actual practice a case of which is quoted in The Future of God by Deepak Chopra):
"Justin Heckert, a journalist who was reporting on a thirteen-year-old girl living with this anomaly writes that:
She really has a lot less fear and regard for her body than…, anyone at all, really. She was playing air hockey with her sister so crazily I thought she might hurt herself…. She threw half of her body onto the table…. Her parents were mortified.
But Heckert quickly lost his envy of a child who felt no pain, accepting instead what her doctor said: 'Pain is a gift that she doesn't have.'"
It is not so much pain as suffering. Of course, if someone was never born, they never have to feel pain nor the odd suffering that comes about from not being able to...plus, it is not just pain of injury, but psychological pain counts too.
Ask yourself why is it bad that the girl you mentioned cannot feel psychical pain. The reason it is bad is because the resulting damage to her body that she will invariably cause will result in considerable PSYCHOLOGICAL pain. Deepak Chopra misses the bigger picture which is that pain is bad whether it's physical or psychological.
Joseph - you're right - the condition of congenital analgesia is extremely dangerous since pain is a natural defence mechanism and sufferers can bleed to death from even innocuous seeming cuts. Benatar though, takes issue with the existence of suffering more broadly - which includes physical pain but also extends to psychological pain as well as other harms - i.e. socio-political, economic & environmental ones. Heaven this world isn't ...yet.
It depends.Every human individually should survive because thats our nature.The purpose of existing is the existence itself.Tho all other goals and dreams are unique and set by our own minds.There is no true purpose of anything except for living creatures because we are unique in our own definition of existence separated from all other things.Life struggles to live because thats what life itself is including everything.Tho we as living beings or things,we are the only one known thing in this universe that sustain and can sustain itself.The purpose of life is to survive as long as it cans In my infinite wisdom gained i learned many things about us and the whole universe that surrounds us.Nature created all kinds of living objects including us.Some are creepy like the spider,some are beautifull like dogs.Some are parasites,carnivore,herbivore,etc.Every creature has its own surviving mechanism that allows them to sustain its goal and its purpose which is living.All pleasures like food,sex,videogames,sleep etc or other feelings like love,fear or anything else. They are here because without them we would not survive.We humans as creatures are the smartest and sometimes we dont even realise it.We are the only known creature in all this universe that can kill itself even if our purpose is to live.There is so mutch more to write i can literally write a book about this subject so i will stop here.Also sorry for my bad english
@finalfantasy8911 just like antinatalism.
@finalfantasy8911 simple. If you know nature doesn't have an intrinsic rational standard for anything, then why do you suppose everyone is somehow obliged to follow this "ethic purpose" antinatalism preaches? In the end, it's just another subjective philosophy in the same line of hedonism, existentialism, absurdism, etc. ultimately based in emotion and individual projections of "good" and "bad".
@finalfantasy8911 of course humanity will end at some point and long term plans are ultimately useless, but so is giving up. Guess which one most people are going to chase after? Even though suffering may be bad, pleasure is it's polar opposite, and each one has it's own definition of what's worth fighting for. If one decides to live through a terminal, painful disease until the end for his own reasons, no one has objective authority over his choice but himself.
Besides, the point still stands, and I think you didn't get it. Even if a living individual goes through more harm than benefits, it won't ultimately matter once death comes and all physical data of said harms are erased from existence. 0 x -100 is still 0.
NewSkin you can’t argue with these people they think you’re delusional no matter what
By your logic, rape should be allowed as it fulfills life biggest desire, survival of the species, more the babies more are the chances of species survival......
Y'all mfs really try to talk about nature while living the most unnatural life possible.......we're not just limited to being animals anymore so we can override our selfish animalistic desires, such as procreation.....nature don't know no shit, we do as humans, so choose wisely
Certainly is
existence has suffering and chaos inherent to it. Meaning is obtained by confronting that chaos and making strides to push it back and expand our domain of competence.
@finalfantasy8911 if death negates everything, then suffering doesn't matter either.
@finalfantasy8911 even if you consider that parallel (which I disagree with, by the way... nothing is objectively "necessary"), what does it matter if death still nulls the whole thing in the end?
@finalfantasy8911 of course I'm not "oblivious to all of that", but between sticking my hand into the fire and just walking past it (because why not?), I'll pick the second option.
Also, if you're open to assigning negative aspects to existence, logically there are positive points to be found as well (friendship, fullfilment, happiness, etc.). They may be more rare than stumbling upon stones along the way, but they do exist, and if you see the negative value of suffering as an argument against life, the polar opposite should naturally serve as it's counterpart. Addressing only one side of the subject your argument deals with is as biased as the optimistic "good vibes" outlooks you guys hate so much.
@finalfantasy8911 I thought it would be obvious enough, but what I meant by "fire" is the knowledge that there is horrible stuff happening out there, which is what you addressed. There's no reason for me to burden myself with shit random animals and people I've never heard of go through. I'm not "oblivious" to it like you said, I just don't care because, you know, it's out of my reach anyway.
Besides, that take on positives isn't "scientific" in any way, it's just a philosophical equivalent of seeing the cup half empty. If positives don't amount to anything, then neither does suffering, which was my previous point. With the same reasoning, I could say the bad aspects of life are just an interruption of highs. As for needs, they're not necessarily bad unless they get to the extreme (i.e. starvation, insomnia, etc.). A slight appetite right before a tasty meal or the disposition to take a walk aren't anywhere near a bad state of being in my experience - if anything, they're minor thrills preceding a higher point.
"Scientifically", suffering is just a pattern of electrical impulses triggered by things adverse to your health and survival, which is the functional exact opposite to pleasure. "Scientifically", there are no advantages to be seen for a non-existent "being" since it's a parallel of saying nothingness has a color or smell. Again, what you stand for is not "realism", it's a projection of your definitions for "bad" and "good", which are ultimately subjective by very definition. You're free to consider your own life a pile of crap, but don't expect everyone to see through the same lenses as you.
@@newskin9234 So, you're an egoist and not ashamed of it either. You are no better than a concentration camp guard. Congratulations.
I don't believe that pleasure and pain are the ultimate good and evil respectively. Existence and freedom are much greater goods. Pain is not even that bad since, generally, it's purpose is to teach us what to avoid so that we can achieve a greater level of existence in the future. Existence is necessary to experience anything at all, good or bad. But freedom is necessary to have the choice of what we experience.
If you had a choice between living under a totalitarian state that forced you into situations it had calculated would maximize your pleasure and minimize your pain, or living free and able to do what you wanted even if it would cause you more pain than being prevented from doing so, I think most people would choose freedom.
Hello Seth, once born freedom doesn't exist. You can only experience freedom while sleeping. Being unborn is freedom, life is a prison, life is a punishment......
@@KD-cg9iq lol I know, what freedom is this person talking about?lol
Hello Sparkly, indeed, the best way to describe the suffering reality of existence is the following sentence:
Nobody ever experienced suffering until the day they were born......
Well, letts say that freedom is an intrinsic value that stands out over everything of the suffering (I doubt it). Still not an argument agains antinatalism, as you have to become in to existence to have that freedom and have to be born under that freedom circumstances, witch you can not guarantee.
@@KD-cg9iq there's no "freedom" in non-existence since you're not even an agent with a will in this case.
The Will to Power theory of fulfillment > Hedonism. Suffering is a necessary component of beauty, and condemning it is fallacious. The quality of life depends on ACCOMPLISHMENT. The pleasure and suffering is just secondary.
David Benatar also has an argument against the fulfillment theory if memory serves. As for your claim, I see no reason to accept this, we seek out accomplishment because it gives us pleasure. If anything is secondary, it is accomplishment, since the only reason we care about accomplishment is it makes us feel good.
Consider something I've called the Circular Sadness Paradox. If desires are formed by what gives the most pleasure, yet pleasure is the reaction caused by an event that relates to your desires in a beneficial way, then it seems that we have reached a circular explanation of our axiology, and something more fundamental must underlie this. So what forms desire? My ideas, at the moment, is that the ultimate teleology of humanity and everything is striving towards further levels of creativity (novelty, complexity), and so desires are formed by whatever increases creativity to the highest degree, and so pleasure only comes as a biproduct of an accomplishment that entails the furthering of creativity. I wrote what I believe to be a rough outline of the hierarchy of will in nature in my blog:
"A hierarchy of forms, or a hierarchy of the will of nature:
Power supervenes on creativity. Power is the capacity / potential to emerge further complexity of creation and destruction (creativity)
Desire supervenes on power. The desire to birth creativity. It is often falsely thoughts that desires are formed by emotional responses, but desires are actually formed by whatever creates the most power - the most potential for creativity.
Emotion supervenes on desire in combination with events. The events in relation to what the subject desires creates the emotional response
Action supervenes on emotion + desire + events. If something desires and feels emotion, it acts to further its desires. If the now cannot be contrasted with the potential future, the actions are arational and based in pure impulse
Rationality supervenes on emotion + desire + event + the realization of contrast between actuality and potentiality - In A.N. Whiteheads terminology, actual entities / nexus vs. eternal objects. If something desires, feels emotion, and realizes the contrast between what is and what can be, it can rationally guide its actions by relating its desires to past actualities, current actuality, and future potentiality, thus transcending mere impulse.
With the combination of perception in the mode of causal efficacy (causal perception), perception in the mode of presentational immediacy (sense perception), and rationality, a plethora of concepts can be created via the bisociation of essentially all the above mentioned categories coming together to create practical tools for isolating experience into illusory categories. There is the illusion of a stable foundation to these concepts, but upon exhaustive analysis, they are just vague relations of the mentioned categories. A.N. Whitehead called this perception in the mode of symbolic reference.
The universe starts with the hunger for creation and destruction (creativity) and from there begins the eternal creative advance of emerging higher complexities in order to maximize creativity and power. The universe is likely an infinitely large web of power structures that are mutually coordinated via compassion as the realization of the interconnectivity of will, yet also dominated via the affirmation of the will to power."
@@kramerknipe4332 You try to place human traits on dead things. The universe knows nothing about neither creativity nor power.
Life can b horrible. Esp if u don't have money to fix basic issues
I disagree with you.
Boy, this is a sloppy presentation.
Why do you think that? If you have a critique of my argument, feel free to offer it. If you are just here to insult and deride, please go somewhere else.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene you see his forename implicates german provenance and the germans ar VERY special . . . .the pollyanna priciple would never ever come out of that country . . . .
Life is pretty dope.
John Duncan nope
Nope times 2
I like it. I'll take yours if you don't want it. Take your remaining life, put it in a box, and leave it outside. I'll come pick it up. No charge.
Depends to whom you direct the question.
Your lucky
People these days standing on the shoulders of giants: in this case Schopenhauer. I don't know who this David Benatar is and don't care. Schopenhauer is the only philosopher of Cosmic Existensionalism I resonated with, as my entire 45+ years have been one struggle and fight after another, and have always thought it better to be hit by a truck or not wake up tomorrow than to continue on this shit world; even better to not have existed at all.
Study Buddha's teachings :)
Life is a beautiful curse