I've thought about it for a long time now

"

Crackmonster wrote:

The meaning of nature is pretty damn close to life and growth, it's not something i just made up the roots of the words and the meaning of those words. There is nothing changed here. Why is growth positive? You kidding me? Growth is plus, it's adding rather than subtracting where destruction subtracts from what is, growth adds.

See, this is just begging the question though. Are you aware that "The meaning of nature is pretty damn close to life and growth" is a meaningless statement? Different people interpret nature differently. We have anti-natalists, moral relativists, natural law proponents, etc...

Again, you are essentially begging the question by asserting that your interpretation of nature is correct. Anyone else could just make the exact same claim and we would be stuck. Watch.

Antinatalist: "Life is to feel pain and to suffer. That's the true meaning of life, therefore we ought not give birth to more life."

"

No. If life in the grand scope of time is to survive, there must not be more destruction than creation.

No, it is conditional in so far as that "if life is to survive" is a conditional statement. The argument is only true if and only if "life is to survive." Which is an assertion, not an objective fact of life. Eventually all life will go extinct, there is no doubt about that actually. Best case scenario a few billion years. So how exactly does that work for you?

We are racing towards extinction, at some point in the future (if we even manage to survive this long) our sun will turn into a red dwarf and even if we could survive that, the universe itself is supposedly not endless either(in a temporal sense).

So if we really want to talk about the "grand scheme of things" it doesn't make any sense to argue that our purpose is to survive even though we are facing guaranteed extinction at some point in the future.

"

Thanks, i'm glad you picked up on my humility, i deliberately indicated that if we assumed the previous was right, then the following would be true, leaving space to attack the assumptions.

In bold, is conditional not universal. But every time I point this out to you, that the truth of your proposition is based on the acceptance of an assumption/axiom, you turn around and claim that it's universal.

"

But you're not thinking clearly, someone goes against you so you see it as negative, revealing your own state of mind.

No I'm not, the nature if this debate isn't negative at all. Nobody is being insulting or aggressive... we may not agree with eachother, but that doesn't mean that I see no value in discussing this topic with you.

"

Actually, it is so. One of humanities greatest strengths is our ability to work together and help each other. Again you got things backwards, you look at the moment and think wow it's possible to in the short run be rewarded by greed and taking from others, but if that became the norm then we would survive less well. In essence, we humans are a species that are very good at putting the group before our individual selves, and help each other.

Well, in order for you to be intellectually honest here though, you would have to first identify the fact that in western societies our population and birth rates are predicted to go down. So doesn't that at least give you reason to pause and think and maybe consider the fact that our society isn't actually this fair and just?

I would also argue that birth rates as such have very little to do with justice or morality. If an african woman gives birth to 10 children and only 3 of them make it to adulthood, you would most likely still find an increase in the overall population even though 70% of the children died.

This is part of the reason why population numbers are still growing in Africa, despite people living in absolute poverty and misery.

This fact actually stands at odds with your natural law theory. For if the growth of life was the ultimate purpose (as you point out) we would have to (based on the evidence) conclude that an african society (with poverty, disease and general misery) sees more population growth than our western society (with individual freedom coupled with alot of egalitarian principles) therefore we should all live like poor africans, given that their society shows more population growth than ours and is therefore promoting life more than we are.

Natural law theory (at least as you understand it) therefore cannot be the foundation of our philsophy, otherwise, by simply looking at the facts of nature, we would have come to completely different conclusions about our own society.

"

Yes karma. You really think that those who spend their lives exploiting people are full of joy, and loved by those around them for who they are?

Karma doesn't mean you cannot take anything from another being, which in fact we all have to do to survive. Karma deals with actions of excessive good and bad and their consequences.

Ok then what about child mortality? Suppose a baby is born with miserable pain and a severe mental illness. Is that Karma?

Let me guess, Karma doesn't apply to all people universally... to some life is fair and to some life isn't.

"

Karma is more about balance than being extreme, so it's funny you should bring extremes up in your ignorance, showing just how little you understand what you read.

Well if you cannot account for the extremes, then what are you effectively saying? Sure we can pretend to live in lala-land where nothing bad ever happens and just ignore all the occasions where bad people do bad things and get away with it, or good people are punished for having done nothing wrong (either by nature or other men), in order for our narrative to make sense.

How convenient.

"

Karma you could say is a study of natural law, and karma is based on causality, so really, natural law is based on causality, even if you can't comprehend it. All universal behavioral patterns are dictated by causality.

So Karma is like prayer then. Sometimes it seems to work, sometimes it doesn't.

"

Unnatural in the way that is it un-"good, life, growth". It doesn't lead to growth. Just read what i write dammit, it's laid out simple and logically for you to address directly. Being homosexual doesnt promote life, it ends life with you, it leads to death, and not growth, so i is unnatural. They were given birth to naturally, but they themselves did not act naturally in that regard, they did not promote life.

Ok, and my response to this is... "so what?" you haven't actually established that we are to promote life. For all we actually know homosexuals are doing it right because if more people were homosexuals we wouldn't be at risk of overpopulating our planet.

You see you have this kind of perversity built into your theory. On the one hand you think we should promote life on a limitless scale. Everything that does not promote life is to be regarded as unnatural, un-"good, life, growth", but at the same time cannot escape the fact that we have limited ressources and limited space.

So while you naively believe that all life and growth is good in actual reality it's not quite that simple now.. is it?

"

Also, if you read you see i write that we find purpose in life outside of giving birth, but from nature's perspective our purpose is to carry on life. How did i come to that conclusion? Because that is what being natural is, it's continueing the circle of life, of growth.

I just recently watched the Lion King again, great movie.

Actually it is not a meaningless statement, it leaves room for interpretation, suggesting you to address that point, given that i am interpretating, and also since what follows depends on it. Not everything should be concealed until you have found the perfect form.

"

Anyone else could just make the exact same claim and we would be stuck.

Yea, except the difference is i don't pull it from my ass. It's the history of the word and the meaning of the word. Go think about it if it's hard to understand, nature is represented as creation/growth, it's all that is not destroyed, it is all life around us, including stones. Pretty much anything that has form, is chemically formed.

Also, you keep raving about conditionals, the word bears little meaning to me without a point, and you forget your points, you just say its conditional. In logic we deduce things based on assumptions which allows us to reach conclusions, therefore the conclusions could be called conditional if that's what you mean. If you don't want to use your brain, fine, rely on merely what your senses tell you, see how far you get without logic. Meanwhile, if you want to advance, you must make arguments based on assumptions and reasoning.

"

Eventually all life will go extinct, there is no doubt about that actually.

That's funny, that comes from belief rather than reason. Life may end up earth, but life will not end. Why is there something and not nothing? there just is; therefore it is more logical to assume it will continue to be. Did you really think there is only life one place in the universe, and that the entire universe and all matter will disappear one day, leaving nothing behind and never coming back? And if it should come back, how would you suggest that happens from nothing, and where did it even come from in the first place? No, the most reasoned answer is that life is to survive, because it is rather than is not, to say otherwise is illogical.

Just like when you view the fullness of time, at any given point there needs not be balance, so can any one particular defined space have greater or lower levels of life, but life will persist, we have no reason to believe otherwise. One species may end, but life will endure. So when you bring us up as an example of why life ends, it is pointless to prove anything about life, you talk about human life.

"

Well, in order for you to be intellectually honest here though, you would have to first identify the fact that in western societies our populations and birth rates are predicted to go down. So doesn't that at least give you reason to pause and think and maybe consider the fact that our society isn't actually this fair and just?

I have already stated, that we are in equilibrium with the world. The phenomenon of societies advancing to the point where they may even shrink isn't one i have too much interest in, because i know it will happen, when we reach equilibrium it will go back and forth, with more forth as our technology advances. In lack of space we redefine our goals and the pathways we can walk, for some reason many become too focused their own personal goals. Maybe because in our construction of society it is too expensive to have many children, due to lack of space among other things, maybe for other reasons. I have heard good explanations before but I've forgotten them due to lack of interest.

"

This fact actually stands at odds with your natural law theory. For if the growth of life was the ultimate purpose (as you point out) we would have to (based on the evidence) conclude that an african society (with poverty, disease and general misery) sees more population growth than our western society (with individual freedom coupled with alot of egalitarian principles) therefore we should all live like poor africans, given that their society shows more population growth than ours and is therefore promoting life more than we are.

Natural law theory (at least as you understand it) therefore cannot be the foundation of our philsophy, otherwise, by simply looking at the facts of nature, we would have come to completely different conclusions about our own society.

While reading that, i come to a somewhat non-relating conclusion. Life actually is better represented as "what is", what has been "birthed into the world and still is". Which coinsides with nature being growth/life, life is all the things that are, all the things that have been born into form(grown to be).

Let's take the africa example, of how they have more growth. That's true, but it is missing the point. It actually obeys the law of nature, your example supports what i have been saying. If there was no more birthing than death, they would all die out in africa. To carry on being a part of nature, of life, they must survive. I don't know if i was right in saying it's their natural "purpose", i don't like that word there, but it is something all living species obey, or they would have become extinct.

To be quite honest, i really don't like natural law, not the term nor the common use of it. It seems one of those topics extremely rarely applied, and if someone does, it leads to massive discussions about who is right and wrong, leading nowhere.

Now, i really don't want to take the discussion, but is natural selection a natural law too? I'm sure some funny discussion could arise from that. You might even end up saying that natural laws are things too complex to have been understood from a physical standpoint, but can be observed in effect and are important enough for us to recognize.

"

Ok then what about child mortality? Suppose a baby is born with miserable pain and a severe mental illness. Is that Karma?

Let me guess, Karma doesn't apply to all people universally... to some life is fair and to some life isn't.

The child is highly unlikely to be at fault, i guess you can't rule out that a child could have some consciousness and could theoretically do something that kills it, but in general it's caused by other factors. That may or may not have been karma. Say if the mother provoked people at that happened to be working at a drughouse, till they got so angry they drugged her in ways that killed her child.. or just any other negative lifestyle, that was her karma that brought misery onto her, which in that case was killing her child. It could also simply be bad luck, genes messed up, cancer, a bus drove through her house and killed the child while sleeping, etc.

Karma does apply to all at all times. I don't believe in reincarnation of spirit like buddhists, so i don't believe that if you were born in a lowly place where it is hard to live, it is punishment for something you did in a past life, but i do know that for anyone anywhere karma applies. How they threat others will reflect how others threat you. Karma is stone cold cause and effect, although the formulation of that body of knowledge can come off as overintepretative, even sometimes fantastic. Seek the knowledge within the knowledge, and karma is something to revere.

I'll just add this clip to the thread, because I feel it's contents are relevant both to the initial topic raised by ARPGfan well as the natural law crackpot discussion wich has emerged.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Fel1VKEN8

Very interesting topic...well the original one.

I can tell you that intellectual creatures that live very introspective lives tend to not be as happy as other ones. Simply put "dumb people tend to live happier lives".

OP, you have the feeling that I think most intellectual individuals come across. It's a weird mix between apathy and the idea that your efforts to change/do anything really wouldn't affect those things.

I know that as I've gotten older, I have stopped thinking/worrying about A LOT of things and in this I have learned to live again. Sometimes knowing a lot of stuff sucks. It's more stressful and you get to know the real darkness of the world around us.

I know you aren't suicidal or asking for help or anything, but I can tell you that if you want to feel "different" then you are than go do something completely different. Something you would never think you would do. It really helps to snap you out of the regular lulls of life that make you feel like you are in the middle of an ocean doing nothing.

What they say is very true though: "Ignorance is bliss".

Sometimes not knowing is better than knowing...took me a long time to realize this.

"

Very interesting topic...well the original one.

Sometimes not knowing is better than knowing...took me a long time to realize this.

2+ years old topic.
Took you a long time to read it.
And was it really necessary to "necro" it?

Not to mention the fact that OP had an interesting "story" and huge "conflict" at this forum (old-timers should remember that guy from the avatar pic), hence the thread about "existence".
But it is nothing more than "diving for coverage" of all his misdeeds (by depicting himself as a "complex and multi-faceted person", whom he wasn't)

"

Very interesting topic...well the original one.

I can tell you that intellectual creatures that live very introspective lives tend to not be as happy as other ones. Simply put "dumb people tend to live happier lives".

OP, you have the feeling that I think most intellectual individuals come across. It's a weird mix between apathy and the idea that your efforts to change/do anything really wouldn't affect those things.

I know that as I've gotten older, I have stopped thinking/worrying about A LOT of things and in this I have learned to live again. Sometimes knowing a lot of stuff sucks. It's more stressful and you get to know the real darkness of the world around us.

I know you aren't suicidal or asking for help or anything, but I can tell you that if you want to feel "different" then you are than go do something completely different. Something you would never think you would do. It really helps to snap you out of the regular lulls of life that make you feel like you are in the middle of an ocean doing nothing.

What they say is very true though: "Ignorance is bliss".

Sometimes not knowing is better than knowing...took me a long time to realize this.

But live with person who is dumb, than most probably you would became dumb as well or have no idea what to do with life or feel disconnected like OP written about :).

What is meaning of life, some people ask. Existence is answer given by many.

:).