Beyond Existentialism?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Hi ILP,

I’ve never read philosophy texts, or considered myself a philosopher. I have, however, taken the approach of the philosopher in the way I absorb and assess information.

I have recently began a pursuit to find cohesiveness in my thoughts. To produce a single structure where all observations and conclusions I’ve drawn interrelate so I can understand my philosophy as it were, and how I can move and grow in life ‘authentically’ in accordance with my beliefs.

I closely relate to Existentialism. Mainly that there is no objective meaning or purpose, therefore we can choose our own. Now this is where things get tricky. I’ve thought about who I am as a person, and what I value in life… what I could try to achieve. The problem is, I can’t find anything with enough integrity to pursue. Nothing that has enough value to justify the endurance of life and all it’s suffering, ignorance and general discomfort.

People are defined by their experiences. Their values and identity are shaped by their experiences. Every question our brain asks, is only relevant because we’ve chosen it. All choices lead back to the same cause. Our identity. This is a completely subjective act. Of what relevance is all the questions we ask? At the core, it would seem, we’re all seeking meaning and understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe.

The truth is, we don’t need to look beyond ourselves to find our place and our meaning. I believe our pursuit of (irrelevant) ‘knowledge’ is really just our will to deny the ultimate truth. What could we possibly find that would be of significance? We know our place. We are here because we’re capable of being here. There is no intent for our existence. There is no intent. We’re mutations that are efficient at surviving.

When we’re young, we live in the moment. When we’re adults, we acquire our trinkets, theories and values. When we’re old, we put it all to rest and embrace the end. Life is but an experience, the senses, emotions and journey. The only thing that keeps us alive is our will to live and fear of death. This has just evolved due to natural selection and has no more integrity than the will to die.

Given all this, if I say I don’t enjoy the process of life. That I am uncomfortableI is it reasonable for me to choose death? Is there something more to life that I’m missing? I just want some closure and wonder whether it exists in the world of philosophy.

Thanks for reading and I hope you can spare the time to share your thoughts.

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First of all, Joe, welcome to ILP.

Given your OP, I’m surprised you chose Existentialism over Nihilism. Can you tell us why?

I may be a blip in time and an insignificant gnat when it comes to contemplating the mysteries of the Universe, but I’m me in all of my insignificance and I’m glad I’m me. I’m happy I have my time as me–that homo sapien exists and that I’m a “part of the family.” Is there any ‘reason’ for me to be me? Probably not. Meh. What’s more important? That I am or that there should be some ‘reason’ for who, what, and/or why am I?

I used to think about why I’d been born when I’d been born, female, living in the US, with the parents, the siblings, the extended family, I had. Then I got too busy with my life to think about it much. That’s not to say I didn’t go through thought phases–I did. A lot of those phases were very painfully lasting. But they’ve all contributed to the Me who is Me. And if my ‘contribution’ to evolution–to the continuance of my genus, homo sapien, which is the only remaining species within my genus became impossible (I can’t have children), perhaps I’ve contributed to the thought of my genus.

Is this important in the general scheme of things? Idk. I don’t even know if there is a ‘general scheme of things.’ I only feel that I’m me–and that’s the most important–to me.

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Why do I describe myself as Existentialist?

I do this because I relate to the different concepts that it encompasses. Whether it’s despair due to the absurd, the will to live an authentic life, or the angst due to choice. I believe Nihilism alone ignores our subjective interest towards Life which is intrinsic to being human.

We are born with a scale that we measure Life and experience with, but the scale isn’t unbiased. It is already weighted down towards anything that affirms Life. This is due to natural selection. Those with the desire to live faired better than those without. However, this creates conflict. Our body says it is interested in Life, but our mind says Life is empty, pointless… absurd.

My position may be better described as Existential Nihilism. The problem is, as pointed to in the OP, my body is often in pain and my mind is very entrenched in it’s stance. I can’t see reason to subject myself to this situation when not even my body is happy.

You are satisfied with your plot in Life. This is good, I’m happy for you. I don’t think I can say the same for myself.

Do you think my position is reasonable?

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It’s hard to resist an altruistic seeker.

Don’t sweat the noise.

The purpose that is inherent in all living things is to maintain and protect its inner harmony. Man learned that to do that requires that he obtain and maintain the harmony surrounding him. And from there, all of the insane efforts of the history of homosapian sprang forth as he attempts threats and false hopes in an effort to control all things.

All joy is caused by an inner perception of accomplishment of that harmony and hope (thus the continual effort). Such is the very make of the deepest devoted love, survival, and that known as “Heaven”. If you are looking for something to seek that has true meaning, seek that harmony both within and around you. It will be a full time occupation, don’t worry about that. The Buddhists call it spiritual enlightenment, “bliss”. But it is not a stagnate thing as many have been led to believe. Its momentum is what keeps and maintains it. Try it and you will see. Everything else you try will just be more noise upon yourself and others.

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Thanks James.

I believe what you say is true. For me to continue, I must find harmony. There is so much needless chaos in the world. It is hard to bear, but I see the alternative. In order to affirm Life, I can’t be stagnant and watch the same cycles continually hurt humanity and the Earth.

I must seek change.

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Sure, if you think it is.

Seriousness aside, I get very tired of neo-Neitzscheans, nihilists, existential nihilists, Matrix believers, and anyone else who believes life = suffering. How god-awful, calvanist, protestant, christian can you get?

How does your body suffer pain? Do you have a medical condition such as MS, Parkinson’s, cancer? If so, I empathize with you and will do what I can to emotionally share your physical pain in an attempt to somehow, somewhat, do what I can to try to ease it. My Mother’s last words were, “Oh, God!” and it wasn’t a prayer, it was a complaint when the nurses turned her over onto her side after her final stroke. It took her 4 days to die from repeated morphine injections–because she ‘died’ with her final stroke but never stopped breathing,–until the morphine.

We’re not “born” with any sort of ‘scale’ with which to weigh life and experience. Evolution/natural selection has nothing to do with it. It’s only after we’ve spent a certain amount of time living that we, ourselves, create that scale. Whatever scale we create depends, I think, on the strength of our own ego–what we are to ourselves.

If you think your life has so far been absurd–that it’s meant nothing–that all it’s given you is physical pain and angst, how can anyone other than you change that?

But to change what you are, you have to know and accept what you are. How can you ‘change’ anything otherwise?

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Thanks.

If you’re sick of it, why talk about it? You’re not obligated to. Perhaps use this information for future reference.

Sorry about your Mother. I’m not in physical pain, but was in emotional pain. I don’t think it’s healthy for you to be so dismissive of emotion.

Does a baby feel pain at birth? Does a baby feel fear? Feel hunger?

We didn’t choose these things, and our values and beliefs are just extensions of what we were born into. So, I continue to assert we were born with a scale. It’s an illusion to think there was a true choice involved.

Didn’t ask you to, but rather give your perspective. You did, and I’m grateful for that. Thanks!

I agree. I was asking the question, why should we accept ourselves? I think I have an answer now.

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Have you considered Stoicism?
If it is peace of mind you’re after, you may have to, at some point, embrace some sort of faith-based religion or spirituality.

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joe----what do you really want???

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I’m reading it now. As I’m new to philosophy, I’ve never come across it.

This is a really good suggestion for me. It’s appealing. Must read more… thank you!

I’m not seeking peace so much as cohesion in my thoughts and understandings. I seek to understand my foundation, so I can build upon it. I don’t desire to find something beyond our direct life experience. Religion and spirituality signify a disconnect to me. They distance intrinsic human experiences to sources beyond the body, which I find unnecessary.

But again, thank you for the suggestions.

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This is the goal.

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Two words, Joe, two words…

Smoke pot.

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That is the afore mentioned “inner harmony”. :wink:

Start with what you know, what cannot possibly be wrong.
Build slowly from there.
The mountain grows high.

In the long run though, practicality is always the final issue.

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Yeah, what you said helped me. I tried to thank you earlier, you may have missed it.

As far as building from what I know, I’m trying to clarify what I know with the aide of philosophy. From there, I can make choices to achieve my goals. Again, thanks for the advice.

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And if I struggle, up the dosage.

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In philosophy, it is the total lack of alternatives that guides you to what you know that you know, the “foundation”.

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You may find that there are some questions that philosophy just cannot answer, and many times, they are the same questions that the mind has the urge to keep asking, especially when it comes to area like existentialism. In the end, you may reach a point where you will have to embrace ignorance (like Socrates), or faith.

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You’re good at this.

I think alternatives is my dilemma. To be or not to be. To accept my nature, and live accordingly. Or escape it.

Tricky business.

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Well, thank you. I try to not mislead. {“try” being the key word… nothing can die until it fails to try}

That is everyone’s dilemma and freedom to choose. From which they have formed the dense cloud called “society”. But as you already know, it gets resolved by having that highest goal with which to guide decisions and clear your skies of other people’s clouds/confusions/dilemmas.

How can one escape what one is?
If he wants to, isn’t he already divided and misguided. “If you think that you want to change what you are, first change your mind.”
The trick is to know what one is, not merely what one isn’t or doesn’t have, after which there is no more wanting to be anything else.

What you are, is your Self-Harmony, the most fundamental cohesive effort within, that effort that has kept you alive since before your birth despite your confusions and trials. The purpose of the mind is to help that inner effort to overcome that which is beyond itself and it cannot clearly see;

Clarify
Verify
Remember
the Hopes and Threats
that Optimize the Momentum
of that Self-Harmony
{just in case you didn’t read my signature :slight_smile:}

The task of trying to clarify the clouds within and stemming from others is enormous and questionably futile and fruitless. To merely take a glance at the measure of such a task beyond the obvious confusions you see throughout the history of homosapian;

One can take on trying to get all of those harmonized in everyone else, but I suspect you’d be better off merely aiming at getting them straight within yourself, starting with immutable cognitive foundations which lead to deep emotional foundations which in combination allow for a momentum of growth and further clarification, verification, and memory of your true hopes and threats that guide the whole into harmony - “Self-Harmony”.

Just as a fundamental analogy for how to begin;
“Does an infinite line have an end?”
“How do you know?”
“By definition of course.”
“How do you know that your definition is right?”
“It is MY definition. How can it be wrong for me?”
“But what if someone else has a different definition?”
“That sounds like their problem, not mine.”

James S Saints Concepts
20

Joe, what do you mean by “being of significance”? Is this not a completely subjective term to begin with? Of course we do find things that are of significance, that is all we do. All we perceive consciously is of some significance, otherwise it would not be interpreted as something, it would get lost in the “noise”… it would not exist to us.

Gathering information about the environment is what species have been doing since life exists. This tendency was selected. Most of this information is useless, but the act of seeking information is not, evidently - otherwise it would not have been selected. The capacity to filtering the useful from the useless information depends on the capacity and tendency to acquire information in general.

That man is now losing the idea that there is objective significance is, if problematic, not at all a terrible or negative event, if you think about how the idea that there should be such a thing must have come to exist. Obviously animals are capable of living vitally without the idea of objective significance. They simply live to attain their values - (I think that there is no “will to live”, there is only life which is a product of the drive to attain values that happen to be life-enhancing) - and have no need for the idea that someone should authorize them to do this, to make this “meaningful”.

As humans in a post absolutist paradigm we are in the privileged position of being able to depart from the idiotic idea that there is some source or ground of significance outside of the one to whom the significant is significant. The fact that we are capable of finding things significant is the very root and core of our being. The understanding that this capacity, to attribute value/significance to things, is the key to our capacity to be, is as close to certainty as philosophy will get.