Nerian

3 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

I’m sure it is hard to believe. When in the pitch dark it is hard to believe anything.

None of us know how to fix it, no one you’ve casually met knows, you’re not going to just bump into an electrician, you have to look them up and call them.

I like your analogy. It's very insightful. Thank you.

1 hour ago, Jon Letendre said:

Hi Nerian.

life isn’t the problem, bad life is.

You are in your house in the pitch dark.

Your house isn’t the problem, the electrical box is.

Don’t burn down the house, correct the box.

There are no electricians here, Nerian. Any impressions otherwise were purely cases of blowing smoke up your ass.

Please stop debating and go to a medical doctor. For all you know you have a tumor. See a doctor. Stop talking.

Yeah, I suppose you're right. It's so hard to believe anyone is gonna have a cure for the pain of living.

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

N,

Suicide is not an option as a solution. But most people who contemplate suicide think of it that way. They have a problem they want to solve and suicide is how they perceive a way out. Very few want death underneath. They just want the bad stuff--the problem--to stop. 

(I say this according to some studies I have read and suicidal people I have known.)

The irony is if a suicide attempt is successful, nothing for the person who committed suicide is solved since that person doesn't exist anymore. His or her problems remain for others to deal with--and the act even creates new problems for them.

Suicide is not walking away from a problem because, once complete, there is no movement or awareness. Suicide is death and the dead have no values. They don't have solutions. They are not relevant.

Besides, talk or listen to suicide survivors and you will see the old Mash song lies:

Here are the lyrics from the YouTube description to this video:

For some reason this song caught on when I was in high school. (Yeah, that dates me pretty goddam well dated.) Since it was the theme song for MASH (movie and TV show), it's message is tongue-in-cheek. Apropos, I still laugh about a moment in the movie, the "kiss my hot lips" scene.  

On a strange but true note, I never knew until recently that the words were "suicide is painless." I had always heard them as "suicide is dangerous." What's worse, I think my version is better.

Michael

If life is the problem, then not life is surely a solution. ;) 

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Go get one.

--Brant

By "girl" I assume a young woman

Haha. Ah, if only I could.

21 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

We play the cards we're dealt. I don't particularly envy anyone else's fate. One life was plenty, thanks. Slightly less than 25,000 days so far, a big inventory of adventures and disasters and modest triumphs. What else can life offer, except a spiritual treasury of wandering in the world, making decisions? Whether one wins or loses at the fabulously endowed gaming table of competition with 6 billion others, there is no alternative but to play the cards we were dealt by DNA in a place and time not of our choosing.

Suicide is always an option.

54 minutes ago, anthony said:

The only sterile logic I know of is permitting the separation of one's logic from one's experience. That would be a sterile, impotent 'logic'. They are a unified state: mind and body, logic and experience, theory and practice -- when you make them to be so.

How are you going to go about this, otherwise? (Re-iterating that you should be taking a multi-faceted approach, advised and helped by medical intervention). Your mind has to play a major part, a mind not separate from your being, nor from living, nor from your values, and therefore not separated from your emotions? I emphasize values and purpose again, with the desired end, you will agree, of slowly rekindling a passion for life.  

You've made no mention of recommendations made to you here of Branden, or what you've read of his. He is famed for his output on self-esteem, but that's not all I think he should be well-studied for. His works are comprehensively embracing in all respects. From a substantial philosophical base (you will recognize), he has a profound knowledge about consciousness wrt human existence. I know it will be of great help. You aren't alone in what you've been going through and from my past I am not unfamiliar with the general sense (if not your particulars) of one's loss of purpose and a cause or energy to live, mostly from someone who I was close to.

I've read "Six Pillars of Self Esteem", and listened to the audio book, and I found it very revelatory. I really liked it. It's very useful if you already enjoy living, but not of much use if you find life to be endless drudgery. The ideas in the book were helpful for my self esteem, no doubt. But that's not really my problem. My problem is just that there's nothing in life worth the pain of living it. and I can't even envisage any life that would be worth living.

I've gone about my business and found it to be drag. That was the question. Let's say you follow the logic and agree with it, you set about achieving life, and you find the whole affair utterly miserable.

Quote

The only sterile logic I know of is permitting the separation of one's logic from one's experience.

It's not a matter of permitting, it just is that way. Perhaps you have such power over your own mind but I don't. My emotions are not within my direct control. If they were, there would be no problem. Why would I want to feel miserable all the time? That makes no sense. I know not how to control my own mind that way. Perhaps you can explain it. 

Ayn Rand was clued in.

I've had the thought that it makes total sense that only a woman could portray the ideal man.

You should read the part in the Journals of Ayn Rand where she is describing Roark's character. It's pretty fucked up. She says he could essentially rape Dominique and feel justified about it. He wants her but it wouldn't bother him if he didn't get her. Just the most hardcore badboy who doesn't give af you can imagine.

7 hours ago, anthony said:

Think about it. If you haven't picked up on value (in yourself, in life) being central to "not finding life at all worth living", you need to think.

I frankly disagree. I can see the logic. It doesn't make the experience of living feel worth it. Logic and thinking isn't going to change how the experience feels.

I can agree with your sterile logic all day. It doesn't change a thing about how life feels moment to moment.

2 hours ago, anthony said:

Self-referencing, subjective (and an impossibly tall order) - One's life is *not* one's standard of value. AR: "Man's life is the standard of value..." Not the individual's life, you notice: "Man", the abstract. Free yourself from this extra load, of trying to be your/anyone's "standard" of value. Without 'man', nobody to value, create value or be of value; no life, no possible value. Rather, one's life is instead one's ~ultimate~ value. This is what you show is at stake, and more than enough to be concerned about. Finding value in oneself isn't automatic, it needs strong attention, thought, self-honesty and application. It's not work, as such, you could find it all a great pleasure. Taking life-value for granted, just going through the paces like you may believe many ~appear~ to do, feels the easier option - for a little while.  But doing so will always catch up with one and expose one to one's buried fears, apathy and anxiety. I've been rereading parts of NB's Honoring the Self, and felt some is especially germane to what you have described. Maybe not so relevant, in the chapter Motivation by Fear, he writes about "defense values", the false forms of values which a lot of people (barely) live by.

I'm not sure how any of this relates to my problem of not finding life at all worth living. 

On 2/6/2018 at 1:18 PM, Brant Gaede said:

You might read Nathaniel Branden's The Six Pillars of Self Esteem and use his sentence completion technique on yourself as delineated therein.

--Brant

regardless, good luck and get some good premises, the most important being how special your own life is

Honestly, I don't think I have good bad premises. It doesn't matter how intellectually you agree that your life is your standard of value, it doesn't make the first hand experience of living it actually feel worth any value.

Edit: I meant to write, "Honestly, I don't think I have bad premises." Sorry. That really changes the meaning lol. During writing it I edited the sentence and didn't fix the end. For future readers, I'll note that at time of editing, there were only two responses: the two responses were by Anthony and Wolf DeVoon

On 2/1/2018 at 1:10 PM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Has little to do with money, bub. You are the recipient of modern medicine, clean water, and IT, courtesy of your betters.

I think you misunderstood my meaning. You don't need to know all things, you can specialize in your own field, to provide value for others who know other things, and then trade the products. ie. You don't need to know engineering, that's what earning money is for.

In my life nothing has moved me as much as the beauty of girl. Am I the only one? I'm serious.

On 10/21/2017 at 11:18 AM, RobinReborn said:

How to you ignore distractions when working towards achieving your goals?

Maybe they aren't distractions, but your true values.  I dunno. Sometimes I wonder... if your values were really your values wouldn't you value them? 

Well they suggested to see a psychologist. I dunno how talking to someone is gonna make me enjoy life, but I guess they want me to do that before they drug me up.

I'm pretty much ready to be a zombie.

On 12/29/2017 at 12:24 AM, Brant Gaede said:

Then the real question is whether a human being needs some specialized knowledge "to be psychologically healthy"?

That's like asking if he needs self esteem.

One can be a generalist, but that's not the foundation. The foundation is made up of many specifics. And who has to study astrophysics except that person who has a passion for the subject. Why? Because if he didn't but he could he'd be hurting himself in the brain pan.

--Brant

Are you saying everyone has to study astrophysics to be healthy or am I reading you incorrectly?

On 12/28/2017 at 12:22 PM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Good one. Yeah, we can do without engineering or biology.

You literally can do without it, personally. Humanity cannot. Massive difference. That's what money is for.

On 1/24/2018 at 11:26 PM, Jonathan said:

Talk to a professional.

Yeah... it seems like that's what I need to do.

18 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Nerian,

It's a very good thing you acknowledge this.

Does it ever bother you that they have it and you don't?

Michael

I'd prefer to enjoy living. I just don't see how.

18 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Nerian,

This is an ancient question.

The Bible has 66 books in it. Only one of them, Ecclesiastes, does your thing (it's all meaningless, there is nothing new under the sun, etc. etc. etc.). There are 65 other books that deal with the good stuff.

(Well... Job directly addresses your question because he suffered nothing but pain at one point. There is lots of blah blah blah from Job's friends, but he never gives in to futility or even questions whether life is meaningless. He does ask for the pain to end even if that means never having been born...)

So you are not innovating anything with your futility stuff. But your proportion is way out of whack with what has gone on in human history.

And there's a perspective thing. If you believe your own life on earth is meaningless and not worth living, that's ultimately your decision. If you believe the whole human race is not worth existing, I, personally, don't have the physical vision or awareness of the sheer amount of time and space to judge the lives of everyone on earth who lives, who has lived and who will ever live to make sure. I am incompetent by nature (I'm an individual) to decide for all of humanity.

And I have no wish to guess, which is all you can do when you make collective judgments of that sort. I certainly have no wish to kill other people or try to persuade them to commit suicide over my own opinions.

My name is not Jim Jones or Marshall Applewhite.

Michael

 My questions just reflect my life as experienced. I'm sure some people feel their lives are worth living and do enjoy their lives. I've asked several of my friends and they claim they do enjoy their lives.

22 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Nerian,

You sound like you need a good dose of Jordan Peterson.

Here is a course he sells that deals precisely with getting over this feeling of futility: Self Authoring. (I am going to do this course myself later this year. Outside of my own curiosity and any personal benefit it may bring, as an writer, I think this will provide insights into human nature I can use.)

Or, look at his many YouTube videos. He gives you a lot more things to think about than your one simple measurement of pain-pleasure (which is erroneous anyway).

You only have this one shot and you are not God (or all of reality if you are an atheist). You have a limitation, a human size and restriction, but you also have a gift (after all, you didn't create yourself, so you were given to you  ).

There is no need to waste it with futility when you can find meaning by searching for it.

Michael

Could life really be worth living if it were nothing but pain?

On 7/31/2017 at 11:38 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

DeepMind AlphaGo cannot tie a shoelace.  Lee Sedol  can. 

Intelligence is  -general-.   AlphaGo  can only play Go. 

If you specify one or a small number of tasks (even "mental" tasks)  then a machine  can most likely be built  that can outdo a human   -at those tasks-.   John Henry  found out the hard way  that  a steam driven  hammer  can "whop down steel"  better than he could. 

"Well de captain he say to John Henry, I'm gonna put a steam hammer  on the job, I'm going to whop that steel on down Lord, Lord I'm going to whop  dat steel  on down, I gots a steam hammer on dat job and it whop dat steel on down"

"Well John Henry he say to de captain, a man ain't nothing but a man,  and before I let that steam hammer beat me down, I'm gonna die with dis hammer in my hand,  Lord, Lord, I'm gonna die with dis hammer in my hand"

Well,  John Henry lost to the steam hammer and he did die with his hammer in hs hand. 

The significance of AlphaGo is how it achieved its narrow intelligence. The algorithm that produced AlphaGo is general purpose, and it computes using principles inspired by how the brain works.

It's not AlphaGo, but the algorithms that produce AlphaGo that are astounding.

These algorithms are building blocks on the road to general intelligence. They are just using games as a way to test their technology.

Since there's been some negative reactions, I'd like to voice my support for this technology. LFTRs are a real solution to all our energy problems.

On 6/28/2017 at 9:55 AM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Right, electric bulldozers, electric 18-wheelers, electric aircraft, electric farm tractors, all electric passenger car fleet.

You can generate hydrocarbon fuel by pulling the CO2 from the atmosphere using the energy produced by the reactor. Since you already pulled it from the atmosphere, there's no net increase of CO2 when you burn it. Economical, locally produced and environmentally neutral.

Just imagine it. Cheap, unlimited carbon-neutral gasoline and diesel without lining the pockets of Putin and the Saudis. And all just based on well understood science, no breakthrough required.

Edit: By the way, the Chinese are gonna do this anyway.

David Harriman mentioned pilot-wave theory in his series "Philosophic Corruption of Physics"

For those who are interested in a conceptual look at how the randomness of quantum mechanics could be explained causally:

It's a very positive sign to see mainstream science considering causality as viable again.

This is my favourite theory of quantum mechanics for the simple reason that in my mind it's the ONLY theory of quantum mechanics.

It's probably no deep philosophical shift, but I guess that after half a century of non-theories, physicists are getting bored enough to try something else.

2 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

This thread doesn't make any sense to me. I've been through a lot of difficult stuff, prison, failed projects, enormous stupidity more than a hundred times, arguably still worse off than most people today, credit cards gone, no cash, awful diet, frequently cold. What of it? I count each day as a whole new life, quantity limited, savor every keystroke.

Weird.

On 12/29/2017 at 3:12 PM, regi said:

Hi Anthony,

Can you describe what you mean by, "mountain of pain?" Is it physical pain, or some kind of emotional pain. I have the impression, whatever it is, it has convinced you the cost of living is greater than the reward.

If you really want help, though, you will have to make it clear what the nature of your suffering is.

I cannot help you without knowing exactly what it is that has happened in the last year that is the cause of your pain. But I will make two observations that might help for now.

The first is, since it is only your experience in the last year that has made you dispair of finding happiness, it might help to know that everything changes. Whatever you are suffering will not last forever.

The second is the fact you asked the question. It means you have not competely surrendered to dispair and that you would like to have a reason to go on living. There is a reason to go on living, but you can only discover that when the nature of what you call your pain and drudgery is identified.

Until then, neither I or anyone else is going to be able to help you. I don't think you need a philosophy lesson and I don't think anyone knows enough to be making medical suggestions. Ultimately you will be the one who makes the decision about what you must do and only you can know what decision is right. I will help you discover what that is if you'll decribe exactly what is causing your pain and unhappiness.

Randy

 

You wake up. Beep beep beep beep beep. The alarm screams at you. WAKE UP. Another day of living! What's on the menu today? Living, of course. Lots of work to be done to avoid the pain of entropy. Boring, drudgery, mainly. Task after task. And mounting tiredness and fatigue as you do it. A mildly unpleasant experience all day, powered only on will power, on the thought that if you don't do it, you'll experience more pain. What does the future have to offer? Well, more of this! Forever, every day, until you die. You collapse. Tomorrow, you get to do it all again. You drift off to sleep. This is the best part of life. Not being awake. It won't last long though, before the alarm rouses you from your unconscious bliss. "Beep beep beep beep beep. Get up, or suffer the consequences."

All this just to gain the privilege of avoiding even greater pain, and so you can go on living so you can keep on experiencing more of that.

And from time to time, you can cash in all this suffering for some enjoyment, and eat a piece of chocolate, jerk off, and watch a movie. All in all, your conversion ratio is about 1 unit of enjoyment from 1000 units of suffering.