Give Life a Chance (Against H.P. Lovecraft)

[brendanconnell]

Well, I used to have a nude photo of Lovecraft that I would lean near the candle by mine bed, but then yon girl named Wanda stolen it. She was a, forsake it, Ukranian punk rocker who would take photos and put charcoal over them and sell them on la plaza. At least I am pretty sure it was her who took the photo. Pills ye say? I only take mescaline in its natural form.

I don't know. Perhaps I was thinking of Pils lager.

Or some other PiLs*. I get confused. I am now older than Lovecraft was when he died. It's not fair. I thought I'd check out early with a full head of hair and no beer belly. All I do now is hang around and bore people with tales of happier yesterdays.

*Mayhap the following:

P.I.L. - This Is Not A Love Song - YouTube

Mark S.

[Speaking Mute]

So far as what we posit regarding the universe: pain is real. It is intrinsic to life - a creature that did not have an aversion response would happily wander into one demise or another before reproducing. When we look at life as a whole we see pain as the most common mode of being, because the things life has to avoid far outnumber the things it can exist along side. This is not an interpretation - it's the nature of life. This means, by extension, that the universe is intrinsically bad so far it gives rise to entities that must suffer pain. The only subjective aspect is the extent to which most are ignorant of - or, in the case humans, choose to ignore - pain that does not effect them directly.

Lachman can compare Lovecraft to DeSade if it suits him, but he's ultimately the one that tries to weigh the pleasures of a few lucky individuals against the suffering of countless others.

Lachman writes for a pop audience. I've got a handful of his books and they're great to dip in and out of, but he's really another Colin Wilson type. Grandiose objectives but not much backing up his conclusions. At one point he was an occultist. And it shows.

Anyway, on pain. Here's something from my ongoing anti-CATHR essay (which will never be published outside of young Mr Corrick's genius orbit because faith is out of fashion in Western Intellectual circles and has been since about 1914). So it goes.

"I suspect Ligotti would maintain that, when it comes to pain, as with all misfortune, consciousness itself is the underlying problem, since consciousness facilitates the experience of pain and misfortune. This position, however, can scarcely be demonstrated as being true in all instances. Most people “experience” consciousness as a neutral phenomenon and, except in extreme cases, do not seek an early termination of their lives. (Ah, comes the reply again, but this is because we humans are “programmed” to stay alive by our biology. Quite how one reconciles being able to identify such programming outside the existence of a self and free-will, eludes me.)

It is certainly a striking feature of the modern western world that pain, in all its manifestations, is the ultimate horror to be avoided and/or suppressed at all costs. But pain itself is not the problem, the problem is what causes the pain.

Take, for example, the reverse instance, those who exist in a pain-free world, people with Hansen's disease or lepers whose nerve endings have decayed to the point that they no longer feel pain. Without the sensation of pain they are subject to blindness, deformity, disease and all manner of self-inflicted and random damage because they are not aware of damage developing at its early stages.

Pain is an intrinsic component of the human condition and necessary to it. Pain is our built-in warning system telling us that something has gone badly wrong. In the body it signifies the presence of the system breaking down, its being under attack, or of an absence of something essential.

Suffering is, however, a reaction to the presence of pain. Mental suffering is an indication of our thoughts having broken down and our minds being no longer capable of functioning healthily. Thought processes halt within the limits set by suffering, that is, they go no further than taking suffering as the entirety of the spectrum of human existence. This may be involuntary (in the case of extreme physical pain or mental illness) or voluntary (in the case of philosophical pessimism wherein the absence of hope is the central consideration.)

It does not follow that experience of pain necessarily entails suffering. Certain mystics and martyrs have been subjected to, and transcended, levels of physical agony that would generally be regarded as intolerable by their fellow human beings."

Markitty S.

	CATHR The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

[Mr. D.]

I guess that I never expected to be exempt from pain and suffering. I've never been shot at work and I've never been a direct target of a terrorist attack (so far) but I've had my share of injuries and illness. For three years I had trouble with my feet. That meant that I had to stand for 8 to 16 hours a day with all of my equipment around my waist in pain to do my job. The pain from the suffering that I've experienced is nothing compared to the pain of watching those I care about suffer. Still, I tend to be optimistic. It's all part of life.
Monod's idea that all is pure or mere chance is flawed in it's conception. I know from high school and college probability that the chances of things he describes happening only by chance are astronomical. The chance of a one celled living organism just happening are almost beyond calculation. For that organism to survive and multiply is even more highly improbable. The point is, to assume that chance is the only actor in evolution, or anything else, means that every action for the last 4 + billion years requires the same chance. Laws of Biology, Physics, etc. are improbable. If chance is the cause then, for example, gravity could not be consistent. Every seed in every plant in the entire world would need the same astronomical chance to develop as the first single celled organism needed. Once you start with chance and chance only you're stuck with chance and chance only.
This is simply to show that chance alone is not at play.
Many people today state that "Science has all of the answers." That statement makes me wonder what they know about science. Science is a three step process: observation, theory and experimentation. If the experiment can be repeated a new law is born. We are in a period of time where science has made some important advances, but science is a long way from knowing everything about the Universe. Also, science, by it's nature can neither prove nor disprove the immaterial. So the people who say that science proves that there is no God are using science in a way that it is science fiction. Things that are beyond the simply rational are beyond science.
Posts like this are one of the main reasons I am a member of TLO. I always learn something and have the highest respect for all who contribute. Thanks.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[qcrisp]

Quote Originally Posted by Cynothoglys

Essentially all conscious positions regarding value judgments, including those of life’s desirability, whether positive or negative, are based upon genetic predispositions coupled with experiences and reflections upon the past. This is the base from which values grow. The problem with this is that one’s value judgments seem to be most heavily influenced by past experiences that occur earliest in life, e.g. children raised in a particular religion. They will usually remain within that religion in perpetuity, will leave the religion but retain its value system throughout their life or will leave the religion and the value system but will process their thoughts later in life through the plane of their past religious experience. This is but one example and, admittedly, it is a trite example, but it will nonetheless suffice for the sake of this discussion. Given this, and assuming anyone actually agrees with it, it can then be assumed that, generally speaking, people that experience a carefree, loving, nurturing and sheltered childhood will harbor an overall optimism later in life, and vice versa. This is not always the case, but I think we could all agree that this is generally the course of events. With this in mind, I wonder at what point, if ever, one’s values could have a somewhat higher degree of validity than another’s. It is similar to a native speaker of a language compared to someone that learned the language later in life; the non-native speaker may know the language as an abstraction or linguistic system, but is it a part of them as it is with native speakers? It is my opinion that it is not. Case in point, I am a native speaker of English and, as such, I speak, listen, and read without thinking about English whereas if I speak German, a language in which I am not a native speaker, I am aware of myself speaking German, e.g. I am speaking German as I am internally translating it through my English frame of reference. I spent a large amount if time in a surgeon’s office where my mother was employed beginning when I was four years old. Viewing humans as organisms, that is to say as a summation of parts instead of an inseparable whole, became the status quo. I was not taught this fact in health class; instead I felt it early on due to my experiences and it became as much a part of me as the English language. This inserted a distance between humanity and myself. I believe this gave me a point of view somewhat outside of humanity because I was not as personally vested in it as others. Of course this all goes to the point that there can be no logical end without presuppositions. It is just my opinion that since there can be no objective frame of reference from which to view anything we must ask ourselves questions and try to answer them in the most logical manner available. In his piece, Mr. Lachman posits that love, justice, etc. form a basis from which one can assert that life is indeed a positive affair. I think this thought process is flawed. Given love, justice, etc, the question “to what end?” still lingers. Modern science seems to reveal more evidence each day that suggests that not only are we an incidental occurrence in the universe, but that intelligent life is statistically probable elsewhere and is not all that special. It seems that if you break down the “Life: Good or Bad?” argument to its core pieces and analyze not only the suffering you are likely to encounter but also the inevitable death of yourself, your progeny, the planet, the cosmos, etc. you might not be inclined to assign a positive value to life without resorting to subjective niceties like love, justice, etc. In an attempt to wrap up my rambling, I wonder if the values of humanity would become more pessimistic if children saw the human body as a gathering of systems and parts instead of a singular object. What if children were taught from an early age that everyone is subject to suffering and death and is, from a strictly biological point of view, not so different from a dog, giraffe or anemone? Love, justice and whatever else are all incidental and superseded by these much existential larger issues, in my opinion.

I am currently behind with absolutely everything. I feel that this deserves a longer answer, and also a better answer than I personally can give, but if I make the attempt, it will have to wait until later. My own feeling is that if there is meaning (I won't say "a meaning"), then a clue to it lies in the very existence of the human need for morality.

Quote Originally Posted by brendanconnell

I disagree about humans always being more important than slime moulds. I mean, I would rather read a book by a slime mould than one by H.P. Lovecraft.

And this is why you wrote the foreword to my book!!

[brendanconnell]

Q-bon: No, I wrote the introduction to your book because I believe it affirms the innate beauty of the universe.

[Nemonymous]

Quote Originally Posted by mark_samuels

Here's something from my ongoing anti-CATHR essay...

Mark, I don't really understand what you mean above about this essay's publication prospects. Are you intending to issue it in a formal publication or just give excerpts on TLO?

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[vapidleopard]

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

Quote Originally Posted by mark_samuels Here's something from my ongoing anti-CATHR essay... Mark, I don't really understand what you mean above about this essay's publication prospects. Are you intending to issue it in a formal publication or just give excerpts on TLO?

Sacrum Regnum III is my guess. I'd certainly like to read the full essay.

[ramonoski]

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. D.

The chance of a one celled living organism just happening are almost beyond calculation. For that organism to survive and multiply is even more highly improbable. The point is, to assume that chance is the only actor in evolution, or anything else, means that every action for the last 4 + billion years requires the same chance.

I'm admittedly no man of science, but wouldn't the numbers add up somehow? The chances are ridiculously small, yes, but the universe is ridiculously big. Numbers aren't really my forte, but it doesn't seem that unlikely to me that one planet out of trillions and trillions in the observable universe would develop in the right conditions for life to happen. We know Mars had (has?) water in it, so we can also consider there's countless other planets where a similar thing might have happened but didn't due to a myriad of reasons: planet too small, too big; too close or too far to a star; the chemical conditions didn't occur in the same way, etc etc.

So out of countless possible "experiments", only one (that we know of) resulted in organic life? It sounds as plausible as it seems unlikely.