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StrictlyLogical

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4 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

That implies a contradiction

No, not a contradiction, when the thread started with the post, especially in the climate that existed with the Peikoff tape regarding finding happiness and some other things, it was a heavy time. It was a sad moment to see SL having to do what SL was proposing. I was worried and believed many like you, Dreamweaver, donathos were worried. It was after his coming back and his post about "reprehensible" premises that I realized it was all made up. I was relieved that he would be okay but also annoyed that he had put me through something difficult. I also strongly disagree with some of his premises in his "coming back post" but it was just going to upset him so I let it be. 

I had discussed the original post with the local Objectivist group (they don't frequent the forum) and I was asked "why am I so hard on this guy, we all have trouble with the going into oblivion problem" and were mostly bothered by my discomfort. I was nevertheless very disturbed partially because I have felt as if I lost a friend (even though he is the last thing I would call a friend) and because I had expected to depend on SL's faculties and knowledge and I found them personally valuable. (even though I don't exactly get along with him in many cases). But mostly there was a sense of "what a waste of talent" and that this type of things "should" not happen in an Objectivist group, and that something was very wrong.

In summary, I was worried when I did not know it was make-believe, I'm not worried after I found out. (what puzzles me is why you and dream_weaver seem to act like the OP was not make-believe)

Thanks for the work on the Fountainhead thread, I read it but it was many years ago and will try to connect the dots.

 

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It was a good read, thank, I remember the scene and it is very impactful.

Could Keating or Toohey have been woken up? Maybe not.

But we are talking about falling into the abyss rather than finding our way back. It always depends on when you get to them. If the OP is at an early stage, maybe an argument can help.

Is truth worth dying for? Is preventing evasion worth dying for? It goes without saying that every life has its own characteristics and same with the amount of tolerance for pain that a person has. This means that part of the solution would be a logical argument against what they want to do and then there would be the character of the person and his environment.

I remember the Jones town Guyana mass suicides. I wondered where the evasions started, not only with Jim Jones but his followers. It reminded me of what was going on in "We the Living" and other stories about socialist countries like Cambodia with Pol Pot. If one of my friends had wanted to join the cult, what would I have done?

Heaven's Gate members believed the planet was about to be "recycled". How can one argue against that? In the American Civil War, how did people choose to fight for the north or the south? How can one argue and make them fight for the other side, or better yet to flee to Canada?

Is this in the realm of ethics of emergencies? Are they too far gone where there is practically no volition left?

If so, the demarcation line would be the moment the person loses their ability to choose their way back.

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On 2017-11-12 at 2:22 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

No, it's not irrelevant to the standard of value as such, but what we're discussing is one specific application of it. It might be pivotal to a different application (such as Cypher's plan or the evasion of the difference between food and poison) but not here.

The reason is that believing in an afterlife doesn't necessarily impact one's ability to survive, one way or the other (as countless conservatives are living proof of).

Any of the derivative evasions required to maintain it might do so, but I couldn't say exactly how; there's a wide variety of knowledge required to survive. I couldn't count the mental steps leading up to it nor hazard a guess as to how long you'd take on any given step (since such integration would be driven exclusively by habituation and whatever random ideas you might stumble upon). 

Since I couldn't even guarantee that you'd actually screw up your survival skills before you aged to death, I won't include it as one of the essential factors. That would be dishonest.

 

The possibility which matters much more than that you might become incapable of surviving is that you might stop trying to survive (or try only halfheartedly).

However, since you might keep trying anyway (like any Christian who believes in the immorality of suicide) and since there are situations where Rand clearly showed Egoism to contradict survival as such (survival "on a subhuman level"), even that isn't the real essential; the crux of the matter is why you might not want to live that way.

You can say that it contradicts your requirements "qua man" (as Rand did) or you can emphasize its effects on your psychological health (as I have); I don't see any functional distinction between these descriptions. I simply prefer the latter for its clarity to laymen.

 

That is why, in this particular application of our standard of value, I've included its requirements for the quality of your life and excluded those for its quantity.

 

Maybe. I've changed my mind, for now, but I really don't have the time to repeat myself ad nauseum.

Really?

Firstly, what about everyone's being "too kind"? Kindness means that we had better and harsher arguments we could've used but didn't (or else it could've been ignorance but could not have been kindness).

Secondly, if someone tells you about their emotions point-blank then -unless it'd contradict something else you know- you sure as Hell can draw such a conclusion. In that situation it's not speculation but a valid inference which reason demands us to make - and to fail to do so would constitute the same refusal of integration that Christians mistakenly believe will keep their religious and secular beliefs separate.

Thirdly, if you'd made such a cognitive failure with regard to some abstract issue (such as the relevance of someone's responses) that'd be understandable, if still slightly annoying. Making it about @Easy Truth's post is the kind of shit I'd expect from Leonard Peikoff.

 

If I'm going to stay in this thing then I would appreciate your feedback on all of the points I have already made.

I have now explained exactly why I don't consider "survival" relevant. Feel free to dispute any of that (I'm sure you will) but if you don't consider my argument at the very least a valid alternative to yours then please explain why.

 

HD

Lets take a breath.  I'd like to establish a few things first and then give you the opportunity to address some earlier conclusions of the OP.

1.  My struggle with oblivion is real and ongoing

2.  I have chosen life

3.  In order to obtain 2 I have believed the standard of value is survival qua man and an objective kind of flourishing

In my musings though I have asked what kind of life have I chosen?  Do I have to have life with so much pain?  Would having a shorter life with less pain ... more pleasure... more happy subjective experience .. in fact be equivalent to having a better life?  More of the good life?  Is my standard of life wrong for me?

At the top of the rabbit hole is an alternative... choosing life, mostly.  Choosing a subjective variant of the Objective, choosing a "pleasant life".  My pre-moral semi subjective choice thus requires a different standard of value ... one which explicitly and directly balances survival and pleasure... I began to ponder the possibilities for addressing a pleasant life.

So the OP was born. It is a solid plan built on a consciously chosen subjective standard of value.  Designed specifically to make a pleasant life possible...

Is it so ridiculous to investigate opportunities, alternatives open to me?  No, if I am to continue to live through pain holding the standard of value I currently have, I must understand that as against all alternatives that life of pain, and that standard of value truly is in my best interest.  Otherwise, why hold on to it?

So finally it comes to the formulation and expression of a standard of value which is workable for me.

HD if you had to identify what is wrong with the early conclusion "truth (at least one truth) can be a disvalue" what would it be?

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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I think I've figured out what's wrong with the OP.

Value and disvalue can only be assigned to the possible states of reality, i.e. when you have a choice. Therefore, value or disvalue cannot be assigned to events that are inevitable (such as your own death).

Hence, your feelings of despair about death are not valuations, they are emotions (of the whim kind). This suggests misintegration on your part.

Edited by SpookyKitty
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Also, in order to evade oblivion and believe in an afterlife, you must accept some form of the mind-body dichotomy. (Unless you believe you'll rise from the dead like Jesus with both body and soul.) And then what do you do with the dichotomy all your life? Delude yourself into believing it too is true? What then will become of your standard of value? Will you become a mystic of muscle or of spirit? When you talk of survival and flourishing, is that the survival and flourishing of your soul, or of your body?

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1 hour ago, SpookyKitty said:

I think I've figured out what's wrong with the OP.

Value and disvalue can only be assigned to the possible states of reality, i.e. when you have a choice. Therefore, value or disvalue cannot be assigned to events that are inevitable (such as your own death).

Hence, your feelings of despair about death are not valuations, they are emotions (of the whim kind). This suggests misintegration on your part.

Eventual death itself is inevitable and cannot be  pursued as a value or avoided forever as a disvalue.  This undeniable existent is independent from and distinct from the truth of death, I.e. the knowledge of that inevitability.  That knowledge is a value or a disvalue independent of the fact that everlasting life cannot be an actual value because it simply does not exist.  Of course, the possibility of knowledge ever being a disvalue depends on the standard of value at issue.

 

Good that you note the difference between the act of valuation versus emotion.

If pleasure or emotion is part of the standard of value (it is in the OP), then how I feel, although not an act itself of evaluation, must be taken into account when engaging in the act of evaluation. Assessing value according to a standard including emotion entails assessing the emotional consequences of whatever is being evaluated.

To summarize, it is the knowledge of death (acceptance of its truth) which causes pain and sadness, and the choice between acceptance of that knowledge of the truth or evasion of that truth which is evaluated as respectively disvalue and value according to a standard of morality including survival, pleasure, and happiness. 

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8 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

Also, in order to evade oblivion and believe in an afterlife, you must accept some form of the mind-body dichotomy. (Unless you believe you'll rise from the dead like Jesus with both body and soul.) And then what do you do with the dichotomy all your life? Delude yourself into believing it too is true? What then will become of your standard of value? Will you become a mystic of muscle or of spirit? When you talk of survival and flourishing, is that the survival and flourishing of your soul, or of your body?

Had I invoked the wrong kind of arbitrary belief, then you would be correct about my having to accept some other thing implied by that arbitrary belief.  But this apparent straight jacket to accept something (like a mind-body dichotomy) depends upon an assumption that the belief I have chosen is not completely arbitrary, that it is tied to all the consequences apparently dictated by the alternate reality no matter how bizzare.  But during my lifetime there is no alternate reality, no consequence dictated by it.

You see the "power" of the arbitrary belief I have engaged is that it is "arbitrarily" arbitrary, in the exact way I decide.

So ... mind body dichotomy?  No such thing.  Reality is reality, while alive all of me is what it is, I possess identity, all the rules of existence are intact... there is no soul in material body, just a natural system.  Rising from the dead like Jesus ... no such thing.  Arbitrarily, reality and the afterlife are completely sundered except for one thing, at one point in time, (and whether or not time even "exists" in the afterlife), continuity of myself into another transformed existence, any of the details of which "I know not what". 

As for while I am alive, I choose to live life according to this reality, and all that entails.

My standard of value will remain the same in the sense that I have only one life in this existence and I know nothing in particular about the afterlife.  According to some, a person who engages in the single evasion of believing in an afterlife is a Mystic.  Whether you call it mysticism or self-delusion or mini-intellectual suicide, it is immaterial, it would be what it is.

Flourishing, according to the OP, would be according to the standard of the OP which includes survival of man qua man plus pleasure and happiness.

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How would you respond to the objection that you're violating the law of identity? Essentially your arbitrary belief consists of saying death is life, life is death. A is B. B is A.

If death is rather a transformative process from one lifeform to another lifeform, then I'm not sure your view would qualify as an arbitrary belief, since you're making a factual claim about death. We should be able to study whether it truly leads to another lifeform. If not, why? Is the next lifeform undetectable in this realm? Or are you positing an afterworld to go along with your afterlife?

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29 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

How would you respond to the objection that you're violating the law of identity? Essentially your arbitrary belief consists of saying death is life, life is death. A is B. B is A.

If death is rather a transformative process from one lifeform to another lifeform, then I'm not sure your view would qualify as an arbitrary belief, since you're making a factual claim about death. We should be able to study whether it truly leads to another lifeform. If not, why? Is the next lifeform undetectable in this realm? Or are you positing an afterworld to go along with your afterlife?

The claim is not that life is death or death is life.  The claim is a completely arbitrary one, for which no evidence could possibly exist here in reality (and it doesn't). A is A.  At the instant A is becoming not-A, (life is going out of existence) A is no longer Here but continues, morphing into A' in the There.  The non-A (or B as you call it) we see A transforming into Here, is a corpse.

The claim is arbitrary by definition, nothing in the There can be detected here.  Only death could "confirm" the going from Here to There.  A claim that requires death as a precondition for any evidence to confirm it, is a good example of an arbitrary assertion (one for which no evidence actually exists, and for which none COULD possibly exist). 

What the A' actually is or where the There is or what it is like are all beyond my possible knowledge as I have designed the belief (arbitrarily) such that Here and There are sundered completely (but for the one way passage of death) and hence beyond knowledge of myself, now, Here, alive.

I am not trying to prove to you that the arbitrary is real.  That would place an onus on me to prove a positive to you.  This is precisely the onus (otherwise owed to myself) I abdicate in the process of evading and simultaneously lobotomizing myself.

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27 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

At the instant A is becoming not-A, (life is going out of existence) A is no longer Here but continues, morphing into A' in the There.  The non-A (or B as you call it) we see A transforming into Here, is a corpse.

I'm still having trouble understanding how this is not the mind-body dichotomy. But I'll move on to another objection...

It seems like you're equating value with a pleasing truth. But aren't many displeasing truths also valuable and indeed critical knowledge for survival? If I evade displeasing truths, I will be ignorant of dangerous people and things that might injure or kill me. For example, if I evade the historical horrors perpetrated by Nazis and Marxists, I might become friends with them and join their movements today. Or, let's say a child molester lives down my street. If I evade the disturbing evidence against him, I might think he's a swell guy and let my children play at his house.

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50 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

As such, to determine value, one must assess a mixture of factors.

How does that statement relate to this one in the OP?

Quote

Only now, armed with a proper understanding of the standard of value is it possible to see that blind pursuit of truth is not necessarily a value.  Value is defined by and depends upon a standard.  A truth which is sad and painful and brings no happiness and which never could be but a stain upon existence and happiness, cannot be a value. Such a truth is clearly a disvalue.

The only factor I see considered here is whether the truth is displeasing to you. There's no mention of whether it's important information to know.

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You are correct that this implies that the particular truth is not seen as directly contributing to or reducing survival significantly.

Some, yourself included, likely hold that knowledge of final death does not reduce survival significantly, and I've never heard of any headline stating that Atheism is likely to extend life by virtue primarily of its denial of an afterlife.

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On 11/13/2017 at 9:31 PM, dream_weaver said:
Quote
On 11/13/2017 at 6:41 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

The minds that are best equipped for rationality are also best equipped for evasion (as opposed to drift, as in any mind of social ballast). If a Roark were to turn to "the dark side" they would not be able to become a Keating, but a Toohey.

 

That is an intriguing thought I had not hitherto entertained.

Toohey, in his self-portrait to Keating (4-14) confessed his power-lust. If Roark could not have accepted his path, his alternative would have been to look at 'the proof that another kind of men existed' as 'tombstones, slender obelisks soaring in memory of the men who had been destroyed for having created them'. (Atlas Shrugged, Part Three, Chapter IV) — or so it seems to me.

 

But would that be "turning to the dark side"? Although one could precede the other I use "the dark side", in an Objectivist sense, to denote a certain kind of motivation. 'The producer's concern is the conquest of nature; the parasite's concern is the conquest of men.'

-Somewhere in Roark's Speech [you'd know better than I]

Gail Wynand, the entrepreneurial power-luster, is an excellent example. If Howard Roark were to turn his magnificent mind from grasping reality, to grasping other men, he still wouldn't be able to keep it still; it would still blaze with an equally prodigious talent of a less benevolent (or moral or safe-to-coexist-with) type. Just like Wynand's.

 

Hence, the greater evil of a Roark's renunciation (over, say, a Keating's) also corresponds to a greater degree of self-efficacy. Which is the reward of more (previous) conceptualization. I imagine Kant must've started out like any of us.

 

 

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22 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

It was a good read, thank, I remember the scene and it is very impactful.

No problem. It only took me an hour or so and it's a scene I'm sure I'll need to refer to in the future.

Quote

Could Keating or Toohey have been woken up? Maybe not.

Firstly, as human beings, I think the very meaning of volition is that they could be woken up (and Toohey was already awake - he simply chose to be consciously evil). Secondly, in any borderline case, I find it best to err on the free-est side of all. As I once explained it to a friend: 

 

"I understand: you don't blame them for their evils because you don't think they can help it. In a sense, you're saying they're not fully human. And that's alright. 

But don't you ever dare to think about me in that way. If I do something that upsets you then you have to tell me so; hurt my feelings, if you have to; scream at me, if you have to, but don't you ever fucking say it's beyond my control because it's not. 

I'm just as much of a human being as you are, you bastard."

 

I've found it best to extend that notion to everyone else I can, as long as I don't know anything that'd contradict it. It does lead to more fighting but it doesn't habituate oneself to become nauseous at the sight of another biped (as tends to happen when one denies their free will).

 

Quote

Is truth worth dying for?

Yes.

Quote

I remember the Jones town Guyana mass suicides. I wondered where the evasions started, not only with Jim Jones but his followers. It reminded me of what was going on in "We the Living" and other stories about socialist countries like Cambodia with Pol Pot. If one of my friends had wanted to join the cult, what would I have done?

Slapped them silly, commanded them to pay attention and explained the rational antidote for that particular poison. If you actually were their friend in the first place.

 

Listen past 1:30.

 

12 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:

Value and disvalue can only be assigned to the possible states of reality, i.e. when you have a choice. Therefore, value or disvalue cannot be assigned to events that are inevitable (such as your own death).

Isn't his knowing about death a possible state of reality?

You're on the right track, but look deeper...

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On 11/14/2017 at 6:32 AM, StrictlyLogical said:

HD if you had to identify what is wrong with the early conclusion "truth (at least one truth) can be a disvalue" what would it be?

If a truth (any truth) can be a disvalue then one's own efficacy can be a disvalue, which would be gibberish. 

To act on the precept "if thine eye offends thee then pluck it out" can only result in blindness. Which makes it very difficult to pursue - anything.

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57 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

If a truth (any truth) can be a disvalue then one's own efficacy can be a disvalue, which would be gibberish. 

What efficacy for living in reality is gained by thinking about anything outside of life in reality?  How does the knowledge of a state after life (literally a zero) improve any efficacy for facing the non-zero, and the great multitude of reality?  

Efficacy to what end, what aim?  What kind of "efficacy"? According to what standard of value is "efficacy" judged?  If survival and pleasure are both part of the standard of value, and if these sometimes conflict with one another, then at least some mixture of efficacious rationality and efficacious evasion would be required.  The OP is a good example of that.

If the standard of value dictates the pursuit of untruth when survival and pleasure are at odds, then efficacious evasion is a virtue and it leads to greater good according to that standard of value.

 

57 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

To act on the precept "if thine eye offends thee then pluck it out" can only result in blindness. Which makes it very difficult to pursue - anything.

Certainly blindness, to the extent it thwarts pursuit of values in general (according to whatever standard) would be counter productive. 

BUT if the extent of that blindness did not thwart the general pursuit of values in this life... not in any significant way.. and in fact only thwarted the "sight" of a fact whose knowledge is a disvalue (according to the standard in the OP) and pertains only to something which lies outside of life's possibilities and choices and is in any case unavoidable, then that so called Blindness in fact becomes a virtue.  This is equivalent to the conclusion that evasion of truth can be a value.

 

Do you not agree that according to the standard of value of the OP that at least one truth can be a disvalue? 

What if I chose "carefree experience" (not "life" nor "a pleasant life") as my pre-moral choice, and my standard of value was "the mental state of being completely care free"? I think it trivial that according to that standard (which I am not claiming is a valid or workable standard) the at least one truth surely can be a disvalue. The same goes for arbitrarily choosing as the pre-moral choice "pleasure as such", or "complete peace of mind".

 

HD if you had to identify what is wrong with the early conclusion "truth (at least one truth) can be a disvalue" what would it be?

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1 hour ago, StrictlyLogical said:

what is wrong with the early conclusion "truth (at least one truth) can be a disvalue" what would it be?

You seem to be making the case that value is absolutely tied to truth. That rationality is a value because it leads to truth. That truth is almost identical to value. Or that value, at its core, is the truth (a constituent). A plant can't go toward an untrue sun, an imaginary sun, it will die in darkness.

The implication is that even one single evasion can't be a value.

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20 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

You seem to be making the case that value is absolutely tied to truth. That rationality is a value because it leads to truth. That truth is almost identical to value. Or that value, at its core, is the truth (a constituent).

In attempting to see what is wrong with the argument which leads to the plan (which I find reprehensible) I have asked what is wrong with the essential conclusion that "truth can be a disvalue".

Your answer and what it hints at is intriguing.  I think it is correct that truth (knowledge of it, and the capacity to obtain it) and value are related but cannot be equated. 

The alternative being investigated indeed is whether 1. Some (at least one) truth can be a disvalue or 2. No truths can be a disvalue

But knowledge of the truth of what? If a truth is in respect of something which is irrelevant to your values (according to the standard) then that truth simply is unrelated to value.  So, even if one concludes 2 is correct, it does not necessarily imply every truth is a value (arriving at that conclusion could be complicated), some truths might not be a value but aren't a disvalue either.  (an analogy would be that ingesting some substances neither nourishes nor poisons the body)  

So an equation of truth and value would be unwarranted, and value is not as such "at its core" the truth.

20 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

A plant can't go toward an untrue sun, an imaginary sun, it will die in darkness.

Your discussion, and your example of the plant implies that the unreal itself cannot be a value.  Certainly a non-existent cannot cause anything, and literally cannot be pursued, so the non-existent afterlife cannot literally be a value.  But here we are dealing with a voluntarily held untruth, or a belief in an untruth, which technically is a state of mind.  Knowledge of a truth, a state of mind, can be pursued or evaded.  This exists, and can cause pain or pleasure, and is distinct from the non-existent afterlife. 

Furthermore, although the unreal cannot be a value, real things can be a disvalue, and the knowledge of a real thing, such as death is doubly real.  According to a standard of value that includes pleasure, such knowledge of the truth is a disvalue. 

This is to be contrasted here with your example: you deal with a plant whose standard of value cannot include pleasure as a plant does not experience pleasure.

22 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

The implication is that even one single evasion can't be a value.

You've implied as much... we haven't quite reached the destination.

I have turned, and stopped at the edge of the abyss.  I am listening.

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Alrighty, then.

12 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

But would that be "turning to the dark side"? Although one could precede the other I use "the dark side", in an Objectivist sense, to denote a certain kind of motivation.

That was context-dropping. What followed it probably was true (and I'll probably mention it in another thread) but it had nothing to do with the rest of the post @dream_weaver was asking about; I just didn't want to admit that I'd been talking out of my ass.

Well, that's what I was doing with that statement, as well as this one:

10 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

You're on the right track, but look deeper...

 

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How about this one...

The truth about death is actually a value to you, because it provides the necessary contextual knowledge for your fake belief in an afterlife. Why delude yourself into believing such a falsehood if you don't value the knowledge of death and oblivion?

Then there is the other paradox: why continue believing the falsehood once you've forgotten about the truth? Won't reality and reason lead you to the truth again?

To maintain the delusion, you will always have to keep the context of oblivious death and your fear of it.

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1 hour ago, StrictlyLogical said:

so the non-existent afterlife cannot literally be a value

So it all goes to the heart of the definition of value.

Then a value that does not point to an "existent", attracts toward non-existence. If one defines values as that which one gains or keeps to live, then valuing "nothing" is in fact NOT "valuing", it's doing something else. Also,  "non-existence is a value", it is a contradiction. It is in fact not a value or a fake value, a counterfeit value. It is a lie.

In other words, if life is existence, and valuing is a means to existence, then valuing non-existence is a contradiction, it is not an act of valuing in the first place. Valuing existence (rather than nonexistence) is what means valuing.

So the argument (to this logical OP) would go like this "What you think is valuing is not valuing at all, what you see (or feel) as valuable is not valuable". Life after death may seem or feel valuable but IS NOT valuable (by definition). This is where feeling good and valuing diverge.

That's the best I can do, for now, hold off on the abyss. But ruminating about the abyss is usually worse than the abyss itself.
 

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1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

The truth about death is actually a value to you, because it provides the necessary contextual knowledge for your fake belief in an afterlife. Why delude yourself into believing such a falsehood if you don't value the knowledge of death and oblivion?

The truth of death brings pain and fear and sadness, IF I had not known of it (believed in an afterlife or never saw anyone die ... as say a very young child who has yet to be confronted with death) there would be no need to fake belief.  The need to fake the belief is driven by the DISvalue the knowledge represents upon its discovery.  The falsehood or equally the evasion of a truth is valuable (according to the standard of the OP) because it avoids the disvalue of the truth.

1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

Then there is the other paradox: why continue believing the falsehood once you've forgotten about the truth? Won't reality and reason lead you to the truth again?

To maintain the delusion, you will always have to keep the context of oblivious death and your fear of it.

The idea is not to just forget the truth, but to consciously disavow it, I.e. to deny it and evade it ACTIVELY and continually (as needed).  This is buttressed by the belief in the afterlife as the alternative to Oblivion, which can be reinforced as a positive affirmation  (and an arbitrary one to be sure), over and over.  I will encounter the fact of death from time to time, and it will appear consistent with my arbitrary faith, the corpses remain and what continues will leave behind no evidence whatever to me here in reality...

To maintain the delusion, I will always have to cling to the comfort of my arbitrary belief and evasion, that I will continue in an afterlife.

The plan does not need to consider my mind seeing the fact of the true final death ever again, it is formulated precisely to avoid it.

 

Here's a question for you.  If I could pull of my plan as written, and really could evade the truth with mental evasion and a form of continual brainwashing would there be anything morally wrong with it?  If so, why or how could it be morally wrong, because according to the standard of the OP, apparently it would be morally right?

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2 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

That's the best I can do, for now, hold off on the abyss

Thank you, your post is quite good.

I only want to say for now that it slightly skirts a few distinctions which I would like to point out are in fact separate things.

1. life going out of existence is a fact of reality

2. a particular fact of reality is not the same as the knowledge of that fact of reality (or the assessment of any statement regarding that fact of reality as true or false)

3. knowledge of facts of reality (and associated assessments of that knowledge in the form of statements as true or false) can be instrumental but also can separately be a source of pain or joy or pleasure or disgust etc

4. knowledge is something which can be attained, pursued, or evaded

5. various things one acts to gain or keep can constitute values

6. a standard of value is a guide to action (gaining or keeping are actions) by defining what constitutes a value, and recall the standard of value of the OP is a mixture of survival qua man, pleasure, and happiness

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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3 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Here's a question for you.  If I could pull of my plan as written, and really could evade the truth with mental evasion and a form of continual brainwashing would there be anything morally wrong with it?  If so, why or how could it be morally wrong, because according to the standard of the OP, apparently it would be morally right?

 Yes, because lying to yourself is dishonest and irrational. It doesn't respect reality or truth, which is the foundation of morality.

The OP seems to think that moral evaluation springs fully formed from an arbitrary standard of value. No, it's the result of a complex thought process which considers all the relevant evidence and ethical principles. If you can't stop thinking about death and oblivion, then you might have a serious mental disorder and should see a doctor about it. You might have a chemical imbalance which can be treated with drugs. Obsession, depression, suicidal tendencies, these are not unique medical conditions. People get treated for them. Self-prescribed evasion and brainwashing is probably the worst treatment possible and might lead to a psychotic break.

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