Against Anti-Humanism and the Conspiracy?

[Alarm Agent]

I think the central thesis of TCATHR is that consciousness is the realisation of horror , with or without free will. Humanity is locked up in its own insane asylum, inwardly through solipsism of every individual and paradoxically on the outside by residing in nearly infinite space but without any possibility to traverse it. I think it's evident that the need to avoid these facts shows in growing religiosity, esotericism or ever exploding capitalism etc. It's like screaming ' LALALA I can't hear you!'.
Personally i think the decline has already begun, economically and politcally, even supposedly rational people flee into Cults like Kurzweil's Singularity (which IS rapture for Nerds). Eventually, life will be the cause of it's own demise. How many people will this planet and its ecological and economical systems be able to support ? 10 Billion ? 20 Billion ? Remember that the curve grows expotentially with nowhere else to go. So where under the curve are we ? Even without

Doomsday Argument

Doomsday_argument

I'd say it won't be much longer until the inevitable fall. And that's fine with me.

[Acutely decayed]

Quote Originally Posted by shivering

the critique of free will in the books Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts.

I read Echopraxia (having read Blindsight a while back) and very much recommend it .. for some reason I can't get out of my brain the idea that Valerie would be able to produce some ASMR that is like crack...I know I shouldn't listen to it ...but....

also recently read and immensely enjoyed Alex through the looking glass -by Alex Bellos (which I recommend in particular to Des if he has not read it) the final chapter "cell mates" is pertinent to echopraxia as it mathematically describes how from a set of rules and a minimal set of first principles a self-reproducing entity can be printed

also

Portia Spider - YouTube

[DannySkyshifter]

I don't agree with Ligotti's conclusions at all anymore (guess I did despite my professed disagreement as Legless; beliefs matter but action speaks more clearly, and developing a taste for the Big Fix, whether chemical or theological belies my consciousness clinging to hope...) .

The aspects of reality that he highlights are very real to me . Its a big question, one that seems obvious now, but wasn't often expressed with any clarity: If Existence is Suffering and constantly falling away from us, why not just destroy it ( if only our ordinary conscious human experience) ? The only answer I can give in words is that , even in the depths of constant pain within and around me, I don't personally identify so much with the suffering anymore (still FEELING it, but not seeing it as "Me") and know that it can be dissolved, if only partially and for a moment ( or it just dissolves on its own, without any Will or Agency doing anything) . I don't hold with the notion of free will as its often defined, though I don't go as far as seeing ALL volition and choice as determined by some dark Anima Mundi. My sense of willpower and identity can often evaporate , but I don't go walking around slack-jawed and drooling in a bliss state, nor rampaging in a paroxysm of bestial carnage. The ego is useful for some things and terrible at other things, and now " I " can occasionally
apply that incredibly frustrating advice, to "get out of my own way" ( as for what comes through when that happens, I don't know ).

(Edited for clarity and brevity)