tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post572751718215856736..comments2024-02-13T12:50:30.457-05:00Comments on Rants Within the Undead God: Opposing Nature: Life's Meaning in the Monstrous UniverseBenjamin Cainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-5347533729242562592017-08-06T20:21:36.068-04:002017-08-06T20:21:36.068-04:00We should be careful to distinguish the descriptiv...We should be careful to distinguish the descriptive from the prescriptive formulations of these ideas. I think civilization is underpinned by the sort of existential revolt I explain here and elsewhere on the blog. That revolt may be irrational, based as it is on horror and disgust with nature's impersonality, and so it may ultimately be self-destructive (ecological collapse, etc). That's a descriptive proposition which may be true regardless of whether we'd prefer the meaning of history were otherwise. Now, I also evaluate some such anti-natural revolt as being holy and tragically beautiful, but I don't say all artificialities are equally good. Some are nobler and more inspiring than others.<br /><br />I certainly don't recommend suicide. See my article below for more on that. In so far as my worldview is dark and may cause some readers to feel anxious or depressed, I'd say we shouldn't shoot the messenger. The darkness originates in nature's indifference and in its undead simulations of intelligent design, and that darkness is transmitted by scientific and philosophical discoveries and explorations of the truth. Our task is, as Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Camus, and the other existentialists said, to grapple honourably with the dark truth, to live authentically in relation to it. That authenticity likely precludes happiness in the conventional sense, but it likewise isn't expressed by suicide. <br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2013/11/enlightenment-and-suicide.htmlBenjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-24230767176916409382017-08-06T17:09:02.857-04:002017-08-06T17:09:02.857-04:00The problem is that once you insulate yourself fro...The problem is that once you insulate yourself from nature, your insulation becomes the new nature. If you attempt to cling to your comfort and crush nature, your comfort, and then your very self, are next in line for crushing. We can only create in reference to what we experience in nature. Our aesthetic is not groundless, but is grounded in experience. There is a certain level of reconciliation with—and reverence for—the forces which enabled our uniqueness that is requisite for health. I agree that we should indeed pursue our aesthetic, but not in some vain attempt at replacing our origin with one of our own making. We should always be able to turn to the working model of pristine nature, which generated us along with our potential for radical rebellion, or our aesthetics are sure to be self-destructive. I do realize that this is probably the intention. Temples of suicide, if that is the closeted intent of this dysphoria, should not be so shy of itself. You should not advocate suicide for all simply because you are miserable. If you cannot find a way to reconcile your existence with nature, there is always a way out that doesn't subject the infinite potential of others to your listless cynicism. You possess only negative inspiration in fear of the ultimate source of creativity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-17397985775803236752016-10-01T14:17:49.371-04:002016-10-01T14:17:49.371-04:00Well, if organic life is anomalous in nature, for ...Well, if organic life is anomalous in nature, for resisting entropy as Schrodinger said, bodies fall on the Mind side of the Cartesian divide. But consciousness, intelligence, and autonomy are anomalies within that larger anomaly, and from this introverted perspective, bodies are indeed part of the "external," "natural" world. In that case, yes, the meaning of life would involve ascetic withdrawal from nature, which would include withdrawal from our bodies and their impulses. Resistance to the sex instinct, for example, might be called for. I've defended that sort of asceticism on this blog.<br /><br />However, I don't see a slippery slope here to a defense of suicide. True, suicide would end the body's mindless compulsions once and for all, but suicide would also end the mind and thus the mind's ability to increase irony by further acts of withdrawal. The key question here is whether an act of suicide encompasses all possible acts of ascetic resistance or is equal in value to all the anti-natural acts the enlightened person would have accomplished if only she hadn't killed herself. I don't there is such parity; instead, a long life lived in rebellion against an inhuman world is greater in aesthetic value than the value of a single, admittedly powerful act of opposition to that world such as you find with the right case of suicide. Thus, I'm not in favour of suicide, but prefer a protracted war between the best of humanity and the haunted universe in which we're trapped. <br /><br />Mind you, that's only the prescriptive issue. On this blog I try not to preach, but mainly describe the situation as I see it. The point isn't that I think one course of action is best; rather, the point is that this is what's actually happening despite the fact that most people don't see it. Our species is in fact unconsciously resisting nature by replacing it with artificial worlds, and that resistance has an aesthetic value, which is the greatest value there is after God's demise. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-61023342042851593082016-09-30T00:20:01.231-04:002016-09-30T00:20:01.231-04:00What if the body was the oppressive environment of...What if the body was the oppressive environment of the mind, just as the environment outside us is oppressive to the body? For example, we often feel pain. We have no choice but to stop what we are doing and attend to the source of the pain. We're enslaved to our bodies. And we often feel pleasure as well, yet this is merely the body's method of enslaving the mind and keeping it complacent - a drug, if you may. It's the body's way of making sure we like things that are life-affirming: food, water, social interaction, etc. <br /><br />Should we go to war against our own bodies for their hidden oppression on the ego? Isn't the most authentic and rebellious thing to do, the most dangerous and reactive action, suicide? Shouldn't the rebellious thing to do be to seek out pain, avoid pleasure, and actively attempt to end one's life, simply out of metaphysical rebellion? We may not want to rebel, but this only means that our bodies, and thus the universe as well, have won. The tragic aspect of this would be that the only way we could win is if we destroy ourselves in the process - a rebellion against ourselves.<br /><br />The Buddhist teaching is that we are not identical to our bodies. We cannot control our aging process. We cannot control our hunger or thirst. It happens and we have to react to it. We are merely along for the ride. So although the physical body is in an entropic war against the rest of the universe, aren't our minds continuously being subjugated by the body?darthbarracudahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10420733993856329711noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-26473642966973003522015-07-22T20:00:15.735-04:002015-07-22T20:00:15.735-04:00Alternatively, we might have been spawned by a mal...<i>Alternatively, we might have been spawned by a malevolent or arrogant deity so that our highest purpose might be the moral one of opposing our original function, of malfunctioning, in our deity’s judgment.</i><br />In such a case and if such deity thought itself omniscient, would such a malfunction prove to it it was wrong? Twice even - on what it thought would happen and on the idea it had that it was omniscient?Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-47137732123411676122015-07-17T00:20:35.169-04:002015-07-17T00:20:35.169-04:00Thank you Benjamin for the really thoughtful reply...Thank you Benjamin for the really thoughtful reply and the suggestions for further reading. I keep forgetting that your blog is mostly concerning the "is" rather than the "ought". I appreciate the "is" more than the "ought" because if we can look at the world as it really is we can better adapt and change it to suit the "ought" we wish to design. Maphisto86https://www.blogger.com/profile/07359869856539160113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-16400316570148540782015-07-16T21:00:34.182-04:002015-07-16T21:00:34.182-04:00The question for me is whether an objective unders...The question for me is whether an objective understanding of reality is conducive to making the person happy. Alternatively, such understanding might be a curse of reason, in which case anxiety and a tragically heroic struggle for some sublimation might be the default states of mind for what existentialists call authentic individuals.Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-41749403586461304102015-07-16T20:56:12.635-04:002015-07-16T20:56:12.635-04:00Of course, when someone notes your dark philosophi...Of course, when someone notes your dark philosophical views and asks whether you're taking anti-anxiety meds, the insinuation is that the views are caused by anxiety or depression. And one of the points I make in that article on anxiety and angst is that the causal relation can be flipped around: maybe the anxiety is caused by the philosophy, in which case the anxiety might be indistinguishable from existential angst or dread. And is a mentally ill person's alienation caused by the socially off-putting fears and loathings or are those negative feelings caused by the alienation which indeed enables a person to catch an objective glimpse of what's really going on in society? <br /><br />It's easy to write off deranged rants if they're one-offs and glaring symptoms of idiosyncratic neuroses. But when the cosmicist philosophy matches up with perennial mystical and ascetic traditions, it becomes just as likely the psychiatrist or other critic would be siding with society, protecting it from subversive discourses. That's supposed to be ruled out in the definition of mental disorder, but the main DSM criterion is whether suffering is debilitating, or whether it prevents the individual from carrying out her "social functions." So this conflict between society and individual is baked into the concept of mental disorder, after all. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-40075767887461237032015-07-16T20:48:30.887-04:002015-07-16T20:48:30.887-04:00I asked the meds question, I agree completely Bria...I asked the meds question, I agree completely Brian M. That's why I asked, it seems to me that a lot of people today aren't properly comprehending reality, because they are on medication. The "anxiety" that so many people feel, is likely their mind responding to the tedious nature of their jobs/lives. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-80343250823488185572015-07-16T14:04:30.292-04:002015-07-16T14:04:30.292-04:00Anxiety and depression might not only be mental &q...Anxiety and depression might not only be mental "illnesses" but a necessary result of clear-eyed comprehension of realityBrian Mnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-86497245665741427622015-07-15T20:59:12.765-04:002015-07-15T20:59:12.765-04:00Here's a relevant passage:
'By contrast, ...Here's a relevant passage:<br /><br />'By contrast, the postindustrial oligopolists build nothing. They are, then, parasites rather than superhuman creators. Instead of transforming the real world, replacing the natural wilderness with artificial microcosms that alter civilization as a whole, they manage dream worlds just long enough to scurry away with their private fortunes which they turn merely into the miniature worlds of their gated mansions. They do indeed seek to create something from nothing, a universe ex nihilo, but what they create is entirely for their benefit, and since their dream worlds siphon the life force from the masses who find themselves lost in the Kafkaesque financial maze, these postindustrial power elites are primarily takers, not makers. They gamble in the stock market, using weapons of mass financial destruction, including supercomputers to outmaneuver fellow con artists who are likewise looking for a free lunch. As China has taken over manufacturing, Americans are left more and more with their talents for hucksterism and myth-making. Their new ideas can be productive, as in the fine arts or in technological innovations, but they can also be cons, as in the case of the financial scams in the weakly-regulated American economy. But the postindustrialists aren’t just shameless thieves. They’re fallen angels, gods that have the misfortune of manifesting their glory in a languishing nation....<br /><br />'The postindustrial plutocrats pretend they have a right to an attitude like Yahweh’s towards Job, whereas what we know now about postmodern America is that not only is God dead, but so too are the human autocrats. All that’s left are the self-deluded parasites, the hollow shells that they enslave, and the omegas who watch from the wilderness.'<br /><br />But this seems incomplete to me. I came across a really interesting book called Sapiens, by the historian Harari, which gives the very long view of humanity. He points out that most animal species now are the domesticated ones such as chickens, cows, and pigs. For example, the chicken is the most common sort of bird, at 50 billion. Of course, domesticated animals, which we treat as machines that serve us, are also by far the most miserable creatures, locked as they are in their tiny cages and so on. So what follows from my blog on this issue? Can I condemn this behaviour for being unoriginal and thus ugly in aesthetic terms? Not really, since the domestication of species is quite rare and thus creative, even though it's evil, given traditional moral principles of equality, altruism, and so forth. <br /><br />So what exactly makes the destruction of the ecosystem wrong on my account? I give part of an answer in my response to antinatalists: we need to sustain the biosphere to preserve an enlightened class to rebel against monstrous natural forces, since that's the highest calling in life, as I say in the above article. But I'll have to think more about this and write up my thoughts.<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2014/05/domestication-and-modern-personhood.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2014/06/subhumans-outsiders-and-glimpses-of.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2014/04/sociopathic-power-elites-beta-herds-and.html<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2014/04/the-housing-bubble-and-americas.htmlBenjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-53359668914985845282015-07-15T20:53:45.976-04:002015-07-15T20:53:45.976-04:00Great point, Mephisto. The issue for me is what so...Great point, Mephisto. The issue for me is what sort of behaviour can be proscribed, given a viable, postmodern religious framework (assuming Durkheim's and Tillich's interpretations of religious faith as mere commitment to what we find ultimately valuable, which is to say sacred). If we're worth a damn, we should have values which we care deeply about; we should be inspired to pick a direction in life and to condemn opposing ways of life. The problem is that the scientific and industrial revolutions and the death of God have made most traditional cultures grotesque by way of being embarrassingly outdated. So we need either a new set of values or a new way of justifying old ones.<br /><br />To return to your point, then, the questions are whether we naturalists, cosmicists, and otherwise enlightened, existentially authentic folks ought to condemn the power elites who are abusing the planet and the poor, and if so, on what updated, philosophically sustainable (atheistic, naturalistic, cosmicist, etc) grounds.<br /><br />I've talked a lot about the sociopathic power elites, but much of what I've said is ambiguous so this is worth another article. For example, in "Subhumans, Outsiders, and Glimpses of Posthumanity" I apply my historical explanation of social hierarchies, from "Psychopathic Gods and Civilized Slaves," noting that the alphas and the omegas are both social outsiders compared to the beta masses. This is consistent with Nietzsche's lauding of the alphas and with his contempt for the betas (for the followers who are most asleep in philosophical terms), but I add my account of the omegas. I offer further cynical, nonjudgmental remarks in "Sociopathic Power Elites, Beta Herds, and Omega Watchers." <br /><br />The point is that I try to understand the facts of how societies tend to be structured, leaving aside the question of what ought to be done. But I do consider that ethical question as well. I think we need to reconstruct morality in aesthetic terms, to naturalize moral judgments. Thus, in "Parasitic Supervillains and the Housing Bubble," I apply my aesthetic morality and condemn the Wall Street bankers as being insufficiently creative robber barons. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-84493536213990720942015-07-15T20:15:45.445-04:002015-07-15T20:15:45.445-04:00I'm not on any such pills or any other meds. I...I'm not on any such pills or any other meds. I talk about anxiety here:<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2013/04/psychiatry-anxiety-disorders-and.html<br /><br />Here's a relevant paragraph:<br /><br />"Kahn’s explanation looks to me like it takes on the perspective not just of the genes, but of society’s winners. The winners and the best guardians and proliferators of the gene pool might prefer to think that the omegas withdraw because the losers recognize the superiority of the other members and bow out by suffering from sort of anxiety or depression. The anxiety becomes a physiological mechanism that eliminates those who are no longer socially useful, but the point is that this is supposed to be an active self-withdrawal for the good of the group. I think this reverses cause and effect. Anxiety and depression don’t cause the social withdrawal of omegas; rather, the cause is the omegas’ relative weakness or introversion which in turn causes them to lose in competition with stronger group members, so that the pecking order forms in an organic way. Anxiety and depression are effects of being on the outside of a society. When you’re alienated from a society, you can afford to look on it objectively, in which case you recognize the arbitrariness and absurdity of its rules and practices; you lack a social network and the distractions of cultural games, giving you time to ruminate and philosophize, which leads to skepticism, atheism, a greater sensitivity to suffering, and a general appreciation of our existential plight."Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-9499247229696177222015-07-15T19:35:46.176-04:002015-07-15T19:35:46.176-04:00This is a personal question, not sure if you feel ...This is a personal question, not sure if you feel like answering. Are you on any mood stabilizers/anti-anxiety meds? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-64074498227286570092015-07-15T14:37:14.136-04:002015-07-15T14:37:14.136-04:00It has probably been said countless times previous...It has probably been said countless times previously in comments like this one. Yet I must point out that the conclusion that we humans must create artificial bastions sounds almost like a apologia for techno-futurism or transhumanism. I admit I am no "Deep Green" Luddite by any stretch but when I look around at how unsustainably we treat the planet and other species around us it makes me uneasy. While I doubt it is your intention Ben, your profound philosophy could easily be used as an excuse by a member of the power elite to continue exploiting this world for their own ends or to maintain our current, failing Capitalist way of life. Instead of existential rebellion we get Thomas Huxley's 'Brave New World' or some other dystopian techno future. Maphisto86https://www.blogger.com/profile/07359869856539160113noreply@blogger.com