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raul

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Limiting the content of consciousness
« on: May 12, 2019, 08:30:56 am »
Hentrich, Holden and other readers of this blog,

You may find this article by Sam de Britto interesting.

https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/optimism-artificially-limiting-the-content-of-consciousness-20150819-gj2bkp.html?f

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Nation of One

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2019, 12:20:04 pm »
Quote from: Sam de Britto
Thinkers like Ligotti, and his intellectual benefactor, the Norwegian philosopher, Peter Zapffe, suggest humans "get on with it" through an assiduous process of "zombification", constantly distracting ourselves from "the brotherhood of suffering between everything alive".

This might sound a little grim for us First World types convinced happiness and human rights are "self-evident truths" rather than just stuff we made up to make ourselves feel better about being particles in flux.

Yet, you don't have to venture too far into humanity to find an immensity of suffering, let alone consider the vast, historically unprecedented misery caused by our brutalisation of the animal kingdom. Fifty billion animals die every year to feed us, the majority suffering in alien conditions to which we're completely indifferent.


I find it interesting how we judge ourselves so harshly for the brutalization of the animal kingdom, and yet rarely condemn Nature for its part in creating us.    Something I found unique about Ligotti's philosophical treatise was how he did not let Nature off the hook.   Give credit where credit is due:   the alien world created by "mankind" was actually also created by "Nature" since we all have been spawned by the Natural World.   
« Last Edit: May 12, 2019, 12:27:34 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Nation of One

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2019, 09:46:44 am »
Related comment from Thomas Ligotti's Deep Pessimism

Quote from: Jay
Funny that Ligotti is the breaking point for so many self identified steely eyed realists/ pessimists. It's relatively easy to nibble around the edge of the nonsense that is the human condition and the suffering that it entails but not too many can accept the logical conclusions that Ligotti draws. It's not because he's not right, he is, most people just aren't strong enough to engage with these ideas seriously without gettng depressed or worse. Ligotti and his predecessors are the dividing line between those who want to play the pessimist and those who understand the true plight of mankind.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2019, 02:27:40 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2019, 08:30:45 pm »

Today I read an interesting article from adademia DOT edu:

Ask the Puppet: Towards Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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raul

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2019, 04:59:19 pm »
Hentrich,

As always I read your posts. This post in particular is very important. I don´t know if this is the correct word in English but you have shown, in my view, much resilience all these years and specially this moment you are living with your mother. As you say in American English, you are a tough bone to gnaw.

Indeed, you “might explode at any moment out of nowhere.   This puppet-zombie speaks of an "I" as if there is some stable solid identity, but, there is no such thing, just particles in flux.”

To most your words will seem incomprehensible. All this system depends on “solid identity”.  Solid identity is necessary for the arrogant preachers of individual success, individual liberty, total sacrifice, and the market economy.

There is a word in Spanish, zozobra, meaning something between anxiety, foundering, and vulnerability. Yes, I live in zozobra. That is what the establishment wants.

I listen to Gloomy Sunday. I read that Dr.Goebbels found the song harmful to morality.Even the BBC forbade it because many suicides have been attributed to this song.

Drive carefully and take care of your eyes.

Nation of One

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2019, 05:46:39 pm »
Some people think that life is "wonderful" because they went to Hawaii for a vacation.   With a straight face they lie with this kind of logic.

While I sometimes think that maybe one day I might take employment as some kind of math teacher, when I follow through with the thought experiment, I understand that my side comments about just how unpleasant being alive can be from moment to moment, no matter how well I were to present the "material," it is the side comments and my morbid sense of humor which would have me at the mercy of those who police our true thoughts.

When someone is a tough bone to gnaw, this may be similar to being a "tough nut to crack."

When we say that life is a perpetual misery machine, or simply a nightmare or horror, we insult those who praise their "Creator" --- They want to feel good about their going forth to multiply and do not care to see their entire lineage as just so many termites.

I don't take this correspondence with you and Holden for granted.

I imagine that were I to get "cancer" and turn into a walking skeleton, both you and Holden would encourage me to celebrate the news as my days would then be numbered.   

While I am easily frustrated, when it passes, I see clearly why it is problematic for me to take employment where I would be forced to police everything that comes out of my stinking mouth.

While the analogy of cats and dogs may be too simplistic, it is laughable to imagine trying to train a cat to pull a sled or "sit on command."

In this way, I am more like the cat than the dog.   Or, better still, maybe more like the wolf than the dog.

My failure to find a suitable "master" has been a great blessing, I suppose.

Like you, and probably like most (even if they deny it with their lying smirks), I also exist in this constant state of  zozobra.   Thank you for this word.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2019, 05:50:12 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

raul

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #6 on: May 18, 2019, 10:24:19 am »
Hentrich,

Once again thank you for your words. Yes, I think the lack of a master has been a great blessing.

Most would not understand these words. I often overhear conversations and they do not see that we are slaves in this prison farm. The problem is that most of them are parents. No, they do not see, using your words, that life is a perpetual misery machine. If they ever do that, their entire world will fall apart.

As you well know we are in a big festival of testosterone (sorry if the spelling is incorrect). I suppose that when a father passes away and one has a child, one becomes a father, one replaces the old man and replace the old man in the tribe and at the same time, one takes command of the pack.

I saw some female patients in the hospital. Their heads were shaved. I suppose they are undertaking chemotherapy. The experience must not be very pleasant. I would not like you to get cancer.  One can get injured in an accident and recoveries are slow. Our bodies are fragile and come with an expiry date.

Stay safe and sound.

Nation of One

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #7 on: May 19, 2019, 01:15:52 am »
You're right, Raul.  No, I would not celebrate being diagnosed with cancer.   

I was thinking that my recent unintentional loss of weight might be a symptom of something sinister inside the internal organs, but maybe my metabolism is just speeding up even higher than before.    I am sure I eat enough food.

It's just a strange feeling to have been 135 pounds for most of my life, and then, suddenly, to be right around 122 to 125 pounds.   Sometimes I think there is a tapeworm in my intestines devouring the food, but this is highly unlikely.

I think of the kid Holden mentioned, the kid who is losing his hair from malnutrition, and I feel kind of ashamed.  I mean, damn, maybe I am feeling guilty about having spent so much on books over the last few years, some of which I feel I will never get to; that is, that this House of Cards will come tumbling down long before I make a dent in the library I've "invested" in.

Even those of us who are not fond of being alive suffer the pressure of these chains of biological necessity.   

Nothing is what it seems.

Anxiety can be paralyzing, and I am sure relieved not to have any kids depending on me for sustenance.   

I think my mother might be a bit of a hypochondriac, and it's possible that her nervousness about her own weight loss has now morphed into concern about MY weight loss.  She pesters me to see a physician about it.  I haven't had a doctor in many years.   

I'll be looking into it soon, getting a check up somewhere.   First I have to help the Mother file for personal bankruptcy.  Sometimes I wish I could just snap out of this 20 year long reluctance to seek gainful employment, but not reporting to a job has become second nature to me.   

If you think no one cares about the kids living in the streets of India while the automatons report to their masters, you can just imagine how little pity there is for the likes of me.  Even though I live a humble life and do not demand much from this world, there are most likely those who might judge me as "spoiled," "lazy, " and deserving to die, or at least deserving to be made so desperate that I would take any job offered to me.

I want to allow myself to feel however I feel.   I have a great deal of hatred within me.  I really feel it in the morning when I open my eyes.  There are things I do not verbalize because I think feeling such things appears childish.   For example, I do not feel responsible for my existence.   I was thrown into this world not by choice. 

« Last Edit: May 19, 2019, 09:46:16 am by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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raul

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #8 on: May 19, 2019, 10:26:42 am »
Hentrich,

As usual thank you for your words. I hope your mother is doing allright. You are having much patience with her. It must very difficult for you.

As you say I also have a great deal of hatred within me too. I do not feel responsible for my existence either. I was thrown into this world not by choice either.

I don´t think you should feel guilty or ashamed for spending so much on books all these years. This world is beyond our control.You are not responsible for the tsunamis, the poles melting away,  the extinction of other species, viruses, the crows of people suffering famines sleeping on the streets of the big cities, the suicides, violence, rapes, the endless wars, the fanaticism, the extreme poverty of millions who have no water, no food, and who breathe polluted air, or the pollution that causes unknown pathologies.

Those who utter that you deserve to die, or least deserving to be made so desperate that you would take any job offered to you might consider their words twice or three times. This reality is a farce or straightjacket. Those who attack you will not be able to see the other side of the moon.

Sometimes at night the horror of being me or existing attacks me with full force.

I feel much sadness and bitterness for those who report to their jobs like automatons. I know I may have to do that very soon. You and others have realized that the “normal” world of salaries, jobs, saving accounts and work stress are not for you. You and the others are outside of these rules. You and others are like crocodiles with wings or a tiger living in waters. That is the comparison I can think of.

Here I often see young girls holding babies begging for money. Both the girls and the babies suffer from malnutrition. I often see a man on the bus being taken by his helper to beg for money in the street. Two months ago on the bus I saw a boy stealing a girl´s wallet from her backpack. He was so fast that none could react.

I have grown accustomed to all this. I saw also a young man with bottles in his hands in the morning and I am sure he was not drinking lemonade. As Holden says nobody bothers, nobody cares. I include myself in this indifference.

Keep studying.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2019, 10:29:28 am by raul »

Nation of One

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #9 on: May 19, 2019, 12:34:13 pm »
Thanks Raul.  That Hebrew prophet/philosopher the "Christians" portray as a god incarnated in human flesh is recorded as saying that "man cannot live on bread alone."   

You encourage me to keep studying, and this morning I am able to do just that.   By noon I am dizzy with hunger as usual, and so I fry up the last of the potatoes while the Mother drove herself to Mass.  I will add a few chicken menstural-cycle eggs and feed the hungry beast that is my animal body.   

Not to contradict the "Lord," but there is no studying without bread.   I was researching how many college students are struggling to prepare decent meals.  They are trying to make it work, but find that the devil is in the details.   They make it into these institutions of higher learning only to find that, in reality, it cannot be done.   They take loans to pay for the "education," but then find themselves struggling to get enough nutrients in their bodies.

When they suffer nervous breakdowns, they are fed psychiatric medications instead of some kind of systemic change.  I worry about these kids, but I can do nothing to help them.

Yes, man cannot live on bread alone, and study adds an inner dimension to our otherwise redundant and pointless existences; but without nutrients for the body, there is no energy for study.

I suppose the best one can do is embrace the days we have enough to eat, a roof over our heads, and a calmness enough to study.   We can barely help ourselves.   It's no wonder there is a rising tide of suicides even among those who we normally do not associate with malnutrition or homelessness.

May these millions of "young adults" take courage as they come to realize that Nothing that is so, is so.

Meanwhile, as we well know, there are the elderly living on canned soup and peanut butter, dying slowly in silence as the masses are kept "entertained" with sports and "nationwide talent shows."   What a mind-fuuck!

You and I know the score, and so we move through this world cautiously with a certain degree of humility and even "grace," but there are so many who are shocked when they find that things aren't what they seem.  With their degrees in hand, they are overwhelmed to discover themselves going hungry with all that "education."

The school of hard knocks says, "Welcome to the nightmare."

footnotes:

Millions of College Students Are Going Hungry

Tuition or Dinner? Nearly Half of  College Students Surveyed in a New Report Are Going Hungry


« Last Edit: May 19, 2019, 12:42:41 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #10 on: May 19, 2019, 02:08:31 pm »
Senor Raul,

People  ,in general, disgust me. One  of the reasons  why I have been developing fondness for maths is because it is one of the most introverted disciplines there is.My  days  and nights are shadowy  in   the  sense that I  do not find them concrete  in any significant  way.They  are here now  and after a moment they are gone.A   massive round of privatisation  is in  the offing.

It  is  very  hot here. It gets as hot as 37 C in  the  day. People sweat like pigs. All the buses and trains are packed well beyond the  capacity. And  no wonder.An average Joe here is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.The first question you would be asked here is whether you are married or not and  what  is the size of your   brood.You might find it funny that here they  don't speak any one language.What they speak is a kind of a patois, which an amalgamation of regional languages ,English and other local  dialects. If  you were to speak any language with a  certain  amount of purity,then they would immediately deem you as an intellectual  and thus a no-good  parasite.

Its hopeless, isn't  it? The kids on the streets,they sell balloons to the lovers.Every week   ,once or  twice, the sub-way system  is brought to a grinding halt -someone jumps  in front  of  the train and dies. Some one is diagnosed with a life threatening ailment   like cancer and decides to first poison the wife and  kids and then hang  himself  as  the medical treatment will ruin the financial  health of the entire family.

Even to sleep  in the street in the night, one is  required to pay  "rent"  to the goons of the locality.Yes, life is  indeed beautiful.
Think happy,positive thoughts and all will  be well.

Keep well.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2019, 02:30:31 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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Death of Seneca
« Reply #11 on: May 19, 2019, 02:21:05 pm »
https://ibb.co/dWjWFfh
“What need is there to weep over parts of life, the whole of it calls for tears,”-Seneca.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

raul

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #12 on: May 19, 2019, 05:29:57 pm »
Holden,

Thank you for your response and for the screen shot. Yes, think happy, positive thoughts and all will be well. Remember that bombing in Sri Lanka last month? Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen lost three of his four children in the Easter day attacks. Povlsen, his wife Anne and their four children were in Sri Lanka on vacation at the time of the attacks. Yes, think positive thoughts and all will be well. As you say life is beautiful indeed. Here last month in an accident almost an entire family lost their lives.

I suppose when some see me as a parasite, they might ask themselves why I am spared of tragic events. They question why good people, in their view, have to go while others still stay on this planet.

There is a kind of extraordinary intelligence, sharp, out of the normal, that instead of benefiting us it sink us into general confusion, boredom and resentment. That kind of intelligence is not a privilege, but a punishment. The one who owns it does not enjoy it: he suffers it as an infection, as a fever that returns from time to time and annihilates the defenses and destroys the whole body, or as a sore that occasionally returns and opens to spill its foul-smelling pus and infects.

That is the problem, so to speak, with Hentrich and you and others who read this blog.Those, like you and Hentrich, who read, think and ponder about deep issues, turn books into firearms, in hand grenades or machine guns and remain alert with the fingers on the trigger so to speak.

Stay alert.

raul

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #13 on: May 20, 2019, 11:48:57 am »
Hentrich,

Thank you for your words. There is no studying without bread. Yes, that is life. Welcome to the nightmare, as you say.

I would add wars and never ending conflicts to sports and "nationwide talent shows." It is a kind of macabre entertainment too.

This is nothing new. We are slaves in this industrial society.  Once I read that the three richest people on Earth have a fortune that is higher that gross internal product of 48 poor countries together.  And if somebody wants to give the whole population on Earth easy access to food, at 2,700 calories per day and running water and basic health resources; that would amount more or less to  what those in Europe and the USA spend on perfumes. Funny world.

Millions feel depression and eating problems and they are addicted to both legal and illegal drugs. Millions need medical assistance to be able to endure their lives. A harmful and destructive force is spreading throughout this contemporary society. Millions do not feel at ease by producing like pistons in this giant machinery that step by step is wearing them out until becoming useless spare parts and which will be later replaced by younger spare parts. It is not possible to deny bitterness and misery. This negative force attacks all of us regardless of sex, gender or social class. Even those in high society and the moneyed classes also go to their psychiatrists. They are also drug addicts and consume alcohol and they go too to clinics for rehabilitation. They also experience defeatism and depression and they also suffer and commit suicides. Like an insect in a spider´s web we are trapped.

Drive carefully.

Nation of One

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Re: Limiting the content of consciousness
« Reply #14 on: May 20, 2019, 02:51:23 pm »
That was incredibly well-stated, Raul.   

Knowing this to be true, what you stated so clearly above, how is it that so many encourage positive thinking?  Why are so many impressed with ambitious CEO's rather than those who withdraw into themselves to reflect upon the horror of being trapped in this web of life?   If there is a conspiracy against the human race, it is the collective silence concerning the true nature of our lives.   In another thread I wish to explore how far one might take the idea of nonparticipation.
 
I wonder when our societies will catch up to Kurt Vonnegut's short-story, Welcome to the Monkey House.   If it were not for my mother depending on me so much, not even my love of studying mathematics, programming, and weird philosophy could keep me from registering for "euthanasia treatment."   

We have bitten into a bad apple, and it makes sense to spit it out.     If this life is a "gift," return to sender.   I am tired of gorts implying that one be grateful for "the gift of life."   It's very insulting and dishonest.   And yet, it appears that human survival depends on limiting the contents of consciousness.   That great honest man, Arthur Schopenhuaer, stated it succinctly as, "Life depends on us not knowing it too well."

And then, again, with people like us in mind, he states that, "Life teaches us not to want it."

I want to quote what you wrote above in a notebook later.  Yes, your words are worth reflecting on.

As for Welcome to the Monkey House:

Quote
In the not-so-distant future, a criminal mastermind named Billy the Poet is on the loose and on his way to Cape Cod. His goal is to deflower one of the hostesses at the Ethical Suicide Parlor in Hyannis. The world government runs the parlors and urges people to commit suicide to help keep the population of 17 billion stable. It also requires that the hostesses at these establishments be virgins on the basis that this makes the idea of suicide more appealing, especially to middle-aged and older men. The government also suppresses the population’s sexual desire with a drug that numbs them from the waist down (but does not render them infertile, as that is seen as unethical and in violation of the religious principles of many). This drug is called "ethical birth control," and was originally developed by a druggist who had been offended when, on a family outing to the zoo, his group were confronted by the sight of a male monkey masturbating. Billy is a member of a surreptitious group called the "Nothingheads," people who refuse to take the government-required drugs. Despite a sting by the authorities, Billy the Poet outwits them and kidnaps a six-foot blonde suicide parlor hostess, Nancy McLuhan. McLuhan vows to fight Billy to the very end, but the drugs wear off, and when Billy rapes her, her mind opens as well. Billy convinces her that sex and death are not the answer; birth control pills are. In the end, Billy lets Nancy go, but she is forever changed and, apparently, a convert to Nothingheadism. Billy leaves her a note attached to a bottle of birth control pills that says simply, "Welcome to the Monkey House."


Another similar story by Vonnegut, 2B0N2B was made into a short science fiction film,  2BR02B: To Be or Naught to Be.



Quote from: Raul
Even those in high society and the moneyed classes also go to their psychiatrists. They are also drug addicts and consume alcohol and they go too to clinics for rehabilitation. They also experience defeatism and depression and they also suffer and commit suicides. Like an insect in a spider´s web we are trapped.
Being born is very bad luck.

I am glad that you see clearly that the moneyed classes, as well as so-called successful "professionals," are not exempt from the basic horror of existence.   I think it is a very healthy exercise to state things this clearly.   Great lies are spread through advertizing and ostentatious consumption, fake smiles, horns and fanfare ... all empty pomp and ceremony adding up to nothing.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2019, 05:19:18 pm by H »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~