Challenge to the Agonists

No, suffering is a derivative of joy.
They are certainly not equal opposites.
But this is our basic disagreement.
Ive always been saying existence isn’t symmetrical, and the law of identity doesn’t apply at its core. But thats so many paradigms up the ladder of advanced thinking that from this site these concepts are unapproachable like Betelgeuze.

EERRRRRR

can no one read?

HOW IS A DERIVATIVE OF “A” AN OPPOSITE OF “A”???

AAAAAAHH

:frowning: :frowning:

caintscha thunnck?

Suffering is a derivative of want or desire, not of joy. If you don’t believe that, provide contrary evidence to support your assertion. How does the end product of joy itself cause suffering? It seems to me that there is certainly suffering that arises without joy having been present.

Positives and negatives are never perfectly equal. That isn’t the issue. They are exact opposites, meaning that more of either is necessarily less of the other.

So agony cannot be “a form of joy” any more than short is a form of tall. Short and tall are forms of height. Joy and suffering are forms of consequence-of-effort.

Suffering is a chemical feeling. There are several different types of chemical feelings associated with suffering. One of them is the feeling of not having what one wants. However, if one does not know what wants, that can also be suffering.

Also, it would be ridiculous to say that my “want of not wanting my foot to be electrocuted” is whats causing the suffering. It is not the “want or desire to not be electrocuted” which causes the suffering, but the electrocution itself.

The chemistry is the hardware of the mind’s software. It is the mechanism, not the instigation. As the mind and emotions are inspired to sway, so goes the chemistry that allows for the sway.

One can also sway the chemistry first and cause a sway of emotion or even mind. That would be the same as toying with the physical transistors within a computer so as to alter the program results. One who takes drugs is puring coffee onto his motherboard so as to get visions on his screen and excite his drive.

Emotion is the inspiration. Chemistry is the mechanism.

Causality is somewhat of an illusion, however I’d have to say the root dependency is the chemicals. Without the right chemicals, you cannot have the right emotions.

What you are saying only makes sense because, your thoughts can change what chemicals that are applied, but it is still at the root level the chemicals which decide your emotions.

Okay, James, let me ask you this first. How is a particle which GAINS electrons become “negatively” charged, and he one that loses them become “positive”? On what logical basis is a loss of electrons associated with “positive”, and vice versa?

Magnus, you’re justifying cowardice. Evading is not overcoming. But to be fair enough, I want to provide context for my claim. One of the criticisms of Syrian refugees (the young men, in particular), was that they were not staying back and fighting for their country. The major circulating counter-argument was “its not even my war, and Syrian people have nothing even to do with it”. Okay, that just sounds like cop out argument to me. Is it not also your land, and what is your relationship to your land, anyway? How does adversity or challenge even relate to who you are?
This is another problem with the culture of individuality and hedonism. Everybody is only thinking about “me” and thinking only short-term gains.

What is it that we are overcoming?
We are overcoming whatever is resisting our efforts to achieve our goals.

If you want to get closer to achieving your goals you have to choose the path that will get you closer to achieving your goals more than any other path.

We use intelligence in order to predict how much closer we will get to achieve our goals if we were to go down this or that path.

Sometimes, it is the path of evasion (the longer path.)
Sometimes, it is the path of confrontation (the shorter path.)
It’s not one or the other.
It’s not that simple.

Note that this is a fallible process.
We assume what’s going to happen based on our experience.
What we think is the best path might in fact be the worst path.
And vice versa.

That’s value judgment.
You simply don’t like these people.

This is true since serotonin for example is responsible for mood and a lack of it can lead to depression
Although from a general perspective states of mind are regarded as more psychological than chemical

Nope its chemical.

For instance when I take my meds my thoughts are negative sounding words and phrases, but the chemicals make it feel not so bad.
Like I could think “Im gonna die tommorow” but if my chemicals are good it will feel good.

I think that I just said that same thing, although with the exception of expressing that it is irrelevant.

The US Constitution is merely chemicals. If you change the chemicals, you change the laws for millions of people. So the government is merely chemicals.

That is what you are saying. And in a short-sighted materialistic sense, that is right. But some would rightfully say that the Constitution is far more than merely a bunch of chemicals, even though by changing the chemicals, one could change what the Constitution says. Likewise, a human brain is far more than merely the chemicals by which it functions.

It is not the composite chemicals that makes the US Constitution what it is, despite the physical dependency. And it is not the composite chemicals of the brain that make the mind what it is, regardless of the physical dependency.

I am not seeing the relevance of your question, so I am probably not going to give the answer that you are looking for. And I am having to guess at exactly what you mean by “on what logical basis…”

Electrons are called “negative” somewhat arbitrarily. They could have been called “positive”, in which case we would be thinking in terms of positrons flowing to make electric current and negatons being at the center of atoms. Very technically, the words “positive and negative” have a little more specific meaning, but they are somewhat arbitrarily assigned.

Similarly, “a positive influence on a child” currently has a specific meaning, but if the language was different, the words “a negative influence on a child” could mean that same thing. It is merely lexicon assignment.

Similar holds true for economics. Positive refers to stronger economy and to more money while negative refers to weaker economy and to lesser money. But the words could have been reversed.

In general “positive” implies something lending toward greater; e.g. more helpful, larger, higher, stronger, brighter. And “negative” implies the opposite, lending to being more destructive, lesser, lower, weaker, or darker. And in view of desires, “positive” implies something favoring, increasing the hope of a goal whereas “negative” implies disfavoring, decreasing the hope of gaining a goal, or threatening the goal.

But as every philosopher knows, what is positive toward one thing is negative toward something else. A positively charged economy might mean the loss of your individual money if you “sold short” your stock. Positive and negative are RELATIVE to a neutral balance reference. Negative things can be used for a positive goal and vsvrsa, depending on the preferred balance at the time. What are positive influences at one time might be negative at a different time, depending on the preferred balance.

In physics the same is true - above the ambient normal, neutral balance is called “positive” and below is called “negative”. But the ambient normal, neutral balance of what? Without the concept of Affectance, physics is stuck without an answer and concluding that it is entirely arbitrary and that there is no up or down except in the relative sense and that positive is merely different than negative although magically related somehow. The topic of Affectance Ontology explains precisely how and why they are related. And the relation is that which lends toward an increase in affectance from the ambient is what physicists have always been calling “positive charge potential”. And that lends toward a decrease in ambient affectance is what they have always been calling “negative charge potential”. Electrons are a tiny bundles of the taking away of the ambient normal, neutral balance of space while positrons (or protons) are bundles of increasing the ambient normal, neutral balance of space.

Thusly are assigned positive and negative “particles”. And once such vernacular is assigned, it is maintained throughout the construction rhetoric of more complex structures, such as molecules and ions.

To your specific question concerning an ion, although still not seeing the relevance, an atom that loses one of its negative particles is inherently more positively charged (ie has more increasing of the ambient neutral balance). And an atom that gains more negative particles is inherently more negatively charged, having more decreasing of the ambient neutral balance. Thusly are assigned “positive and negative ions”.

I suspect that you want to know what all of that has to do with positive and negative affectance upon mind, ie hope and threat.

Conscious mind’s function entirely by virtue of their perception of hope and/or threat toward instinctive goals, “PHT”. Anything that lends toward a goal is called a “hope” and in common vernacular is referred to as “positive … toward that goal”, a “positive hope potential”. And of course the reverse, detracting away from a goal is called a “negative” and in common vernacular, “a threat … to that goal”, a “negative hope potential”.

The common thread in concept between the use in physics and the mind is merely the increasing of status quo or decreasing of status quo, positive or negative. But in more complex situations, as we all know, what is increasing for one, is a decreasing for another. So it all depends upon a reference - the ambient normal, neutral balance.

Nope, states of mind are primarily chemical.

One could say states of mind are primarily electrical because of the firing of neurons or primarily atomic because
of the structure of the brain. Even though neither of these really describe them as they are generally understood
So simply because a description of something is true does not mean it best describes the phenomenon in question

One could say that Trixie is primarily a collection of atoms which she is
However it would say nothing at all about who she really is as a person

Nope you couldnt say I am my atoms, I do not have the same atoms as I did when I was a child, yet my consciousness is still trapped here.

Jakob,

I can see how each in turn can derive from the other.

We fall in love, we are filled with such happiness and joy. Love leaves us and we fall into suffering because what gave us joy has been taken from us.

We have lost a child and mourn that child. We suffer until the moment comes when we have given birth to another child. Joy is then derived from great suffering.

I cannot really see how someone can have one without the other.
How can we experience or know something without knowing its opposite?

But isn’t it possible that they might be? The equality would be within the measure of joy or suffering which was felt.
The greater the joy the greater the suffering when life has denied us something and vica versa.
It is like they say - only one who has fallen to the lowest degree is capable of rising to the highest degree.

Define what YOU mean by existence here. Many things are symmetrical in life, nature, etc.
Wouldn’t you say that there is symmetry in a sense in your work about Value Ontology?

If that theory was true, one could never know either until after they experienced the other, thus never.

Both require a desire, but neither requires that other.

Lol that’s a fallacy lol. You need to upgrade your philosophy to Ultimate Philosophy level.

If someone can only see the color green, you don’t say you need to see the color purple to understand green. green is green.

You are thinking about it the wrong way. See I am the greatest philosopher on the whole planet, Yet women don’t appreciate me just because I don’t have a fancy yacht. And they reproduce the dum dum genes like dating some YOLO guido who’s daddy inherited a yacht for him, and leave geniuses like me and tesla to die childless. Just because my father happened to make some bad decisions and lose out on his high paying engineer job with Boeing, so now I’m being punished for his bad choices. Then you make up some bullshit about claiming Im genetic defective somehow, because I want to be a woman, even though women exemplify the highest form of genetic perfection, then ignore that im a genius and that my genes are actually genetic superior to everyone else.
like people would rather date this dude instead of me, even though i have been told i am the reincarnation of neitzche. Neitzche had zero kids, but guidos get like 10 kids. Like they can’t even realize they are simply obeying their most basic primal instincts and they seem to helpless to even act like strong human beings who have no power to overcome their basic instincts, like their body automatically says “Date the rich guy with the 90 iq, rich=attractive” like they have no power to question or override their basic instincts and just obey like a basic animal. Then you wonder why modern philosophy sucks and the gene pool sucks.

For example, Magnus anderson is a genius or semi genius, and yet women are standoffish to him and he has no kids. This is because of reverse natural selection. Satyr is genius or semi genius, has only 1 child and wife divorces him. Again reverse natural selection at work here. Its like on ILP, no woman sends me a pm saying Hey you are a genius, lets date. I litterally get nothing for my efforts.
But this guy, joe shmoe, does why I guess because he works out his abs and has more money than me?

So again, Im running a charity here, giving out wisdoms and I get nothing for it.

So lets talk about the main topic at hand.

What is an opposite? Something 180 degrees in the opposite direction? Are there even a such thing as an opposite?
Seems like this is the result of flawed thinking patterns.

Is sadness really the opposite of joy? Is it able to be quantatively defined as an opposite, or it just feels good to say the word opposite, like an emotional relief? Second is it really accurate to say you need sadness to experience joy? Hypothetically, if someone was put in joy with no sadness, is sadness actually required to experience that joy? Is the color purple required to experience the color green?

Nope but people are gonna repeat the same Facebook memes they learned on the interwebs over and over, like spreading on the webs like a broken record.

Yes, this is what I’m also looking at. I interpreted the second part of your first post as if you might be implying that the universe is biased towards positive things because negative negative particles are smaller; or that universe might favor positive. If that is the case, then I will have to disagree. If not, then what is the relationship between spacing and sizing of these small isolated particles and mental states? Were you trying to make a connection?

In regards to instinctive goals of all living things, one of which might be an aversion to pain, I would argue that even self maintenance requires exposure to uncertainty/anxiety and/or suffering. It just doesn’t make sense to say that universe favors joy or positive, or whatever, if the process of life itself is negative. If everything was about joy and pain avoidance, then there wouldn’t be any life at all. Why would it even be, in the first place?
It wouldn’t have to.
Because of fundamental structure of life itself, to say that life pursues joy is really to say, to quote someone, that life pursues the death instinct, or self annihilation.

Life IS joy.
In this capacity it pursues more of itself (self-valuing).

Suffering is only life directing itself towards joy - to itself.
If you’ll notice, life tends to avoid suffering. Unless that suffering is seen as leading to greater joys.

It is a form of very low and weak joy to think life is suffering. It is just a lowly weak lifeform trying to pretend it doesn’t have any reason to look up to other forms, which hurts the small being.

What is joy? Power, essentially.
Pain is the absence of power.
Thus, wounds invigorate.

But people, this really should be 101.