Consciousness is the real enemy. Animals are suffering too, but they are not aware of it. Also, they will never complain about the futility of their lifes, because they don't know that their life is pointless. If an individual isn't aware of its own mortality and futility, it can not suffer from that knowledge. Of course the physical pains of life will also exist without consciousness. But they are accepted, without questioning it, by an unaware individual. Furthermore, animals are living solely in the present moment (at least to a large extent), so fear of future pain and actual memory of past pain are also not bothering them.
Conclusion: No consciousness = no awareness of futility/pain = no problem.
Mittwoch, 21. August 2013
Dienstag, 6. August 2013
Existence is an illusion
Existence is an illusion. Everything we think, say or do is futile, and at some point we are going to die anyway. Since time is relative and subjective, it doesn't even matter if we are alive now or 1.000 years in the past or the future. "The present" will always be "the present" - OUR present will be the past just like the 1.000-years-in-the-past-present IS the past now, and the 1.000-years-in-the-future-present WILL BE the past.
If you think about this, our whole existence is unreal. YESTERDAY is already ERASED and TODAY will be erased TOMORROW.
Every second vanishes into oblivion.
The Veda knew it thousands of years ago: We live in a dream. I would add: We live in a nightmare...
If you think about this, our whole existence is unreal. YESTERDAY is already ERASED and TODAY will be erased TOMORROW.
Every second vanishes into oblivion.
The Veda knew it thousands of years ago: We live in a dream. I would add: We live in a nightmare...
Donnerstag, 25. Juli 2013
A futile life full of suffering
It's all so obvious. We live as small, unimportant beings in a non-sentient, non-caring, infinite universe, in which there is no goal, no endpoint to achieve - except death. Everything we do from birth to death is futile, because we will be erased with our death, the effect we had on people around us will be erased when they die and at some point - better sooner than later - all life on earth will end anyway and all our traces will vanish.
All this futility and meaninglessness might be acceptable, if it wasn't for the suffering, small and huge and unbearable sufferings, which make life even worse. Because there is no reason to go through any kind of suffering, if there is nothing to achieve, and there obviously is nothing to achieve.
So our lifes are short, meaningless episodes of an everlasting drama, which will be deleted just like it never happened in the end.
How people can even think about procreating in such a world, is beyond me.
All this futility and meaninglessness might be acceptable, if it wasn't for the suffering, small and huge and unbearable sufferings, which make life even worse. Because there is no reason to go through any kind of suffering, if there is nothing to achieve, and there obviously is nothing to achieve.
So our lifes are short, meaningless episodes of an everlasting drama, which will be deleted just like it never happened in the end.
How people can even think about procreating in such a world, is beyond me.
Dienstag, 23. Juli 2013
How far would we go?
I've had a lot of discussions with people who think that our philosophy goes "too far" lately. One argument that keeps coming up is the "it's all relative and you can't really be sure if you're right" argument. In my opinion the naked truth of evolution and life is enough to prove antinatalism to be the right philosophy in the grand scheme of things, even though it of course takes some overcoming to accept that truth. Furthermore, in my opinion the very fact that it's "all relative and subjective" at the end of the day, no matter how rational it gets, is an argument against life, because it just adds to the futility of it all. I'm convinced that antinatalism is the most rational and consequent philosophy ever (that means antinatalism in it's radical form, also known as efilism). But still, when everything is said and done, it's just an opinion and there is no clear sign, like the universe actually telling you, that you are absolutely right. If the world would be a good place, designed by an intelligent being, the absolute truth would exist and would be avaiable for everybody. Only in a chaotic, unintelligently designed nonsense-universe like this, there is even the need for philosophers at all. If there would be any sense and meaning to the world, it would be obvious to everyone!
So, obviously I am absolutely convinced that antinatalism is the perfect philosophy - in theory. My doubts are concerning the practical side of it. First of all, we are just a very very very small movement by now - and I can't see real indication that our movement will abruptly grow anytime soon. Second of all, our philosophy is absolutely anti-life and most people will always be pro-life, that goes even if they decide not to procreate. There are some antinatalists who are still pollyannas in my book and they are representing the philosophy in a compromised way, which i can't really comprehend, because in this case it's obviously "all or nothing" for me. It's the affirmation of the will to live or the denial of it, no in-between, in Schopenhauers words. So even inside the antinatalistic movement there is a seperation between the hesitant and the radical members, which slows down the growth of the movement aswell.
My biggest doubts however are concerning the practical implementation of the radical solutions like forced sterilization and/or ending all life on earth. It's always nice to talk through these things behind a computer desk, but at the end of the day there are a lot of problems here to consider:
- The actual possibility of implementing these solutions for real tends to zero - all our plans are pretty much science fiction, and even if they aren't: How will we even start up all this? This is were the most rational philosophy of the world tends to become irrational, because it's solutions fail on reality.
- Wouldn't we cause more suffering than redemption, if we "tried out" a way to end all life on earth? What if we would kill just 70% of all life and the rest would keep living in a contaminated environment, creating new life in a world that will be far worse than ours today. Then we would have achieved the exact opposite of what we wanted - we would be the cause of suffering. And most importantly: The government(s) would stop us before we could do anything!
- I have to mention one last thing concerning the forced sterilization-aspect. This is really a point where things become creepy sometimes. Again, in theory it's all nice, BUT: Would you want to be the person signing the orders for forced sterilizations? Or even the person who practically implements them on people against their will? For some reason I have more problems with that scenario than with the end-all-life-by-nuclear-weapons-scenario for example. The only exception would be if we would find a way to contaminate earths biosphere with a sort of poison that will sterilize all humans or also all animals in an absolutely painfree way - but again: that's science fiction.
Sometimes I feel like we tend to the radical solutions because we are so frustrated about the fact that we can't really do anything about the whole life-problem right now. I am including myself here, because the more depressed I get, the more I tend to radical statements etc. I'm just wondering how the practical-solution-part fits to my moral standards, especially when it comes to scenarios like forced sterilization. This is simply a point, where, no matter how rational the conclusion might be, the emotional or moral side overwhelmes me sometimes and leads me to the question: Is this philosophy, in the practical outcomes, really the best way to reduce the sufferings of the world - or not?
So, obviously I am absolutely convinced that antinatalism is the perfect philosophy - in theory. My doubts are concerning the practical side of it. First of all, we are just a very very very small movement by now - and I can't see real indication that our movement will abruptly grow anytime soon. Second of all, our philosophy is absolutely anti-life and most people will always be pro-life, that goes even if they decide not to procreate. There are some antinatalists who are still pollyannas in my book and they are representing the philosophy in a compromised way, which i can't really comprehend, because in this case it's obviously "all or nothing" for me. It's the affirmation of the will to live or the denial of it, no in-between, in Schopenhauers words. So even inside the antinatalistic movement there is a seperation between the hesitant and the radical members, which slows down the growth of the movement aswell.
My biggest doubts however are concerning the practical implementation of the radical solutions like forced sterilization and/or ending all life on earth. It's always nice to talk through these things behind a computer desk, but at the end of the day there are a lot of problems here to consider:
- The actual possibility of implementing these solutions for real tends to zero - all our plans are pretty much science fiction, and even if they aren't: How will we even start up all this? This is were the most rational philosophy of the world tends to become irrational, because it's solutions fail on reality.
- Wouldn't we cause more suffering than redemption, if we "tried out" a way to end all life on earth? What if we would kill just 70% of all life and the rest would keep living in a contaminated environment, creating new life in a world that will be far worse than ours today. Then we would have achieved the exact opposite of what we wanted - we would be the cause of suffering. And most importantly: The government(s) would stop us before we could do anything!
- I have to mention one last thing concerning the forced sterilization-aspect. This is really a point where things become creepy sometimes. Again, in theory it's all nice, BUT: Would you want to be the person signing the orders for forced sterilizations? Or even the person who practically implements them on people against their will? For some reason I have more problems with that scenario than with the end-all-life-by-nuclear-weapons-scenario for example. The only exception would be if we would find a way to contaminate earths biosphere with a sort of poison that will sterilize all humans or also all animals in an absolutely painfree way - but again: that's science fiction.
Sometimes I feel like we tend to the radical solutions because we are so frustrated about the fact that we can't really do anything about the whole life-problem right now. I am including myself here, because the more depressed I get, the more I tend to radical statements etc. I'm just wondering how the practical-solution-part fits to my moral standards, especially when it comes to scenarios like forced sterilization. This is simply a point, where, no matter how rational the conclusion might be, the emotional or moral side overwhelmes me sometimes and leads me to the question: Is this philosophy, in the practical outcomes, really the best way to reduce the sufferings of the world - or not?
Mittwoch, 26. Juni 2013
The Assembly Line of Death
Before I move on to the philosophy of Ulrich Horstmann, another great german pessimistic thinker, I will answer some questions that have come up here, on facebook and other communities, and will go more into detail with some points about Mainländers philosophy I haven't pointed out yet:
"I have a problem with the GOD-part"
Some people seem to be detered by the word "god" so much that this word alone makes them question the entire philosophy of Mainländer. I guess what I didn't point out good enough in the "rotting god"-essay, is that Mainländer only uses the word "god" as another word for "singularity" or "basic unity" or however you want to call it. It is not an actual "god" and that god is also not actually committing suicide - you could also say: The singularity destroyed itself instead of "god committed suicide". So all in all: GOD is just a metaphysic symbol, to make the philosophy more poetic.
"I don't get how the will to die can be the driving force of a universe that created life"
Since entropy seems to be the driving force of the universe, it's actually possible. Like you can say "singularity" instead of "god", you can also say "entropy" instead of "will to die". If you keep the picture of the rotting body of god as our universe in mind for one moment, then all the unorganic individuals (gases, liquids, stones etc) are the dead body parts rotting into nothingness, while WE, living beings, are the maggots in the rotting body of God, which is the world. So yes, we are something special in some way, but we are just rotting to notingness in a different way than the rest of the dead body.
"If god wanted to kill himself, why couldn't he reach his goal, nothingness, immediately"
Mainländer states that the fact, that the world exists, is proof enough that the obstacle for god was his own existence, his essence. He couldn't turn into nothingness just like that, because he was in his way, his own essence was stopping him for leaving his existence without thereby creating a world, that has now to fulfill the will to die. Imagine, that we are not living, but dying all the time. life is just a dying process, but what is in the way of reaching the goal of death right now? Right, we are in the way ourself, our essence is the obstacle of reaching nothingness, which is the goal of every life, immediately. This is representing gods own obstacle before the world was created.
"How is Mainländer a pessimist/antinatalist when there is a meaning in his world"
That's right, in Mainländers world there is a meaning. The meaning however, is solely to die for everything and everyone. The antinatal part develops from his philosophy simply as a consequence, because why create more food for the slaughter machine? You can imagine Mainländers cosmos as a assembly line of death, and the movement of that assembly line is the only meaning there is to it all. All the things that are transported on the assembly line, like stones, plants, animals and humans are absoltely worthless and are only there to be chopped at the end of the line, to reach gods goal of nothingness.
"The ideal state is the absolute utopia. It's beyond pollyanna. How does that fit in"
It fits in perfectly, because it would theoretically be the ultimate goal of humanity, something that has been worked on since the first caves where lightened up by torches. It is, however, just an abstract thought, not something that will ever be reached in reality, at least it's very unlikely. But the ultimate goal of humanties movement would be that state and the only thing left to do after reaching it is indeed to end it all, because 1. life is still pointless and futile, even when it's perfect and 2. the movement of the universe can't be stopped, therefore a stagnation in the ideal state would not be possible for humanity, because it is part of the overall movement of the world.
Some information on the person Philipp Mainländer:
Mainländer was influenced very strong by Arthur Schopenhauer and his will-metaphysic and for someone who isn't familiar with Schopenhauers work, Mainländers "sequel" might seem complete nonsense. I can only suggest anyone who wants to read the actual book of the Philosophy of Reedemption to read Schopenhauers mainwork "The world as will and representation" before that.
Mainländer has also written some dramas, novels and poems. His death wish shines out of all of them here and there, however the creation of "the will to die" is of course the peak of this development. Mainländer joined the army several times, because he wanted to die at the battlefield on purpose to fulfill his death wish. Several attempts failed, before he got to write his 1.300 pages strong Philosophy of Redemption. After doing so, he used a pile of copies of his own books as a pedestal and hanged himself in his residence in Offenbach. He was 34 years old when he left the assembly line of death and entered the eternal kingdom of absolute nothingness.
"I have a problem with the GOD-part"
Some people seem to be detered by the word "god" so much that this word alone makes them question the entire philosophy of Mainländer. I guess what I didn't point out good enough in the "rotting god"-essay, is that Mainländer only uses the word "god" as another word for "singularity" or "basic unity" or however you want to call it. It is not an actual "god" and that god is also not actually committing suicide - you could also say: The singularity destroyed itself instead of "god committed suicide". So all in all: GOD is just a metaphysic symbol, to make the philosophy more poetic.
"I don't get how the will to die can be the driving force of a universe that created life"
Since entropy seems to be the driving force of the universe, it's actually possible. Like you can say "singularity" instead of "god", you can also say "entropy" instead of "will to die". If you keep the picture of the rotting body of god as our universe in mind for one moment, then all the unorganic individuals (gases, liquids, stones etc) are the dead body parts rotting into nothingness, while WE, living beings, are the maggots in the rotting body of God, which is the world. So yes, we are something special in some way, but we are just rotting to notingness in a different way than the rest of the dead body.
"If god wanted to kill himself, why couldn't he reach his goal, nothingness, immediately"
Mainländer states that the fact, that the world exists, is proof enough that the obstacle for god was his own existence, his essence. He couldn't turn into nothingness just like that, because he was in his way, his own essence was stopping him for leaving his existence without thereby creating a world, that has now to fulfill the will to die. Imagine, that we are not living, but dying all the time. life is just a dying process, but what is in the way of reaching the goal of death right now? Right, we are in the way ourself, our essence is the obstacle of reaching nothingness, which is the goal of every life, immediately. This is representing gods own obstacle before the world was created.
"How is Mainländer a pessimist/antinatalist when there is a meaning in his world"
That's right, in Mainländers world there is a meaning. The meaning however, is solely to die for everything and everyone. The antinatal part develops from his philosophy simply as a consequence, because why create more food for the slaughter machine? You can imagine Mainländers cosmos as a assembly line of death, and the movement of that assembly line is the only meaning there is to it all. All the things that are transported on the assembly line, like stones, plants, animals and humans are absoltely worthless and are only there to be chopped at the end of the line, to reach gods goal of nothingness.
"The ideal state is the absolute utopia. It's beyond pollyanna. How does that fit in"
It fits in perfectly, because it would theoretically be the ultimate goal of humanity, something that has been worked on since the first caves where lightened up by torches. It is, however, just an abstract thought, not something that will ever be reached in reality, at least it's very unlikely. But the ultimate goal of humanties movement would be that state and the only thing left to do after reaching it is indeed to end it all, because 1. life is still pointless and futile, even when it's perfect and 2. the movement of the universe can't be stopped, therefore a stagnation in the ideal state would not be possible for humanity, because it is part of the overall movement of the world.
Some information on the person Philipp Mainländer:
Mainländer was influenced very strong by Arthur Schopenhauer and his will-metaphysic and for someone who isn't familiar with Schopenhauers work, Mainländers "sequel" might seem complete nonsense. I can only suggest anyone who wants to read the actual book of the Philosophy of Reedemption to read Schopenhauers mainwork "The world as will and representation" before that.
Mainländer has also written some dramas, novels and poems. His death wish shines out of all of them here and there, however the creation of "the will to die" is of course the peak of this development. Mainländer joined the army several times, because he wanted to die at the battlefield on purpose to fulfill his death wish. Several attempts failed, before he got to write his 1.300 pages strong Philosophy of Redemption. After doing so, he used a pile of copies of his own books as a pedestal and hanged himself in his residence in Offenbach. He was 34 years old when he left the assembly line of death and entered the eternal kingdom of absolute nothingness.
Montag, 10. Juni 2013
Entroptimism
Life is Suffering
Life has been defined as suffering by so many different individuals during the history of mankind, from the Veda and Buddha to philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, E.M. Cioran, Ulrich Horstmann, David Benatar and countless others, that I don't even know where to start. First of all, every form of life that we know is in itself just a tiny, insignificant individual in a universe of infinite space and time, bound to a body, forced to fulfill desires and urges for a short time, just to keep the need-machine running and fall back to other forms of desire. Furthermore the biggest problem of sentient life in general is the ability to feel pain in all forms and variations from mild mental pain to extreme physical pain and mutilation. "Happiness" can pretty much be defined simply as a state where all the negative aspects, like pain, hunger and desire are absent, a state which usually leads to bordedom (another form of suffering) very fast, so the state that seemed to be the goal and meaning of life turns then out to be a state that can only be maintained a very short time before it gets replaced by boredom which makes new needs attractive or, even if boredom doesn't come up, gets replaced by new needs anyway. All this means that life is an eternal hunt for the ideal state of the individual, which, as soon as reached, turns out to be an illusion or at least a very short period of fulfillment.
Death is Redemption
Death is redemption for one obvious and very simple reason: It ends life. Ironically, the only way to truly fulfill all desires of life is to end it. Of course, nature took care of that and made sure that death, even though it is obviously the solution to all of lifes problems, is the most horrific thing to imagine for living beings and nothing gets feared more instinctively by animals and consciously by humans, then death. It's pretty absurd that the only secure solution for everything seems to be the one thing that has to be avoided at all costs. I'm sure, if there wouldn't be these frightening guardians at the exit door, suicide would be the most common thing on earth, or maybe mankind would even have ceased to exist ages ago. But as it is, for almost everyone even the most awful horrors of life seem to be better than the horror of death.
Affirming the Will to Die
Philipp Mainländer introduced the will to die to the world of philosophy. While his role model Schopenhauer defined the will to live as the driving force of the world, Mainländer stated that in fact the will to live is just a mask for the will to die (this has been pointed out in detail in my essay "The rotting God"). While Schopenhauer only left the options of affirming or denying the will to live, Mainländer introduced another option, which is the affirmation of the will to die. Of course, affirming the will to live automatically comes with denying of the will to die. But denying the will to live does not automatically lead to affirming the will to die. Denying the will to live has been defined by Schopenhauer mainly as living in askesis and reclusion. But Mainländers option of affirming the will to die goes beyond that. It means not only to say no to life by resigning from it, but also to say yes to death by acknoledging suicide as the solution for life and by realizing that death is in fact the meaning not only of life, but of the entire universe (this has also been stated in detail in the "rotting god" essay). So when Mainländer says: "The sign of our flag is not the crucified saviour, but the death angel with huge, calm, mild eyes, carried by the dove of the redemption thought" this is exactly the affirmation of the will to die that he means. This death angel he describes is not a frightening guardian, but a sympathetic redeemer. Mainländer does not order his followers to commit suicide, but he invalidates all arguments that are speaking against it.
Entroptimism
I recently came up with the idea of calling this will-to-die-affirming ideology "Entroptimism" (a combination of the words "Entropy" and "Optimism"), because Mainländers philosophy goes beyond antinatalism and efilism. It doesn't only deal with life, it deals with the entire universe. Like described in the other essay, the whole universe is rotting to nothingness and life is just a worthless byproduct that rots to nothingness in a special, but worse way then the rest, because it is sentient. Since there is absolutely no hope for anything in this entire universe, the only reaction to it is absolute pessimism. But - If "somethingness" means 100% hopelessness, then nothingness means 100% hope. If somethingness is hell, nothingness must be heaven, because it's the opposite of somethingness. Therefore, the only reason to be optimistic in this universe, is the fact that it will turn into nothingness, that every single part of it will be redeemed forever by the universal death angel called entropy.
Life has been defined as suffering by so many different individuals during the history of mankind, from the Veda and Buddha to philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, E.M. Cioran, Ulrich Horstmann, David Benatar and countless others, that I don't even know where to start. First of all, every form of life that we know is in itself just a tiny, insignificant individual in a universe of infinite space and time, bound to a body, forced to fulfill desires and urges for a short time, just to keep the need-machine running and fall back to other forms of desire. Furthermore the biggest problem of sentient life in general is the ability to feel pain in all forms and variations from mild mental pain to extreme physical pain and mutilation. "Happiness" can pretty much be defined simply as a state where all the negative aspects, like pain, hunger and desire are absent, a state which usually leads to bordedom (another form of suffering) very fast, so the state that seemed to be the goal and meaning of life turns then out to be a state that can only be maintained a very short time before it gets replaced by boredom which makes new needs attractive or, even if boredom doesn't come up, gets replaced by new needs anyway. All this means that life is an eternal hunt for the ideal state of the individual, which, as soon as reached, turns out to be an illusion or at least a very short period of fulfillment.
Death is Redemption
Death is redemption for one obvious and very simple reason: It ends life. Ironically, the only way to truly fulfill all desires of life is to end it. Of course, nature took care of that and made sure that death, even though it is obviously the solution to all of lifes problems, is the most horrific thing to imagine for living beings and nothing gets feared more instinctively by animals and consciously by humans, then death. It's pretty absurd that the only secure solution for everything seems to be the one thing that has to be avoided at all costs. I'm sure, if there wouldn't be these frightening guardians at the exit door, suicide would be the most common thing on earth, or maybe mankind would even have ceased to exist ages ago. But as it is, for almost everyone even the most awful horrors of life seem to be better than the horror of death.
Affirming the Will to Die
Philipp Mainländer introduced the will to die to the world of philosophy. While his role model Schopenhauer defined the will to live as the driving force of the world, Mainländer stated that in fact the will to live is just a mask for the will to die (this has been pointed out in detail in my essay "The rotting God"). While Schopenhauer only left the options of affirming or denying the will to live, Mainländer introduced another option, which is the affirmation of the will to die. Of course, affirming the will to live automatically comes with denying of the will to die. But denying the will to live does not automatically lead to affirming the will to die. Denying the will to live has been defined by Schopenhauer mainly as living in askesis and reclusion. But Mainländers option of affirming the will to die goes beyond that. It means not only to say no to life by resigning from it, but also to say yes to death by acknoledging suicide as the solution for life and by realizing that death is in fact the meaning not only of life, but of the entire universe (this has also been stated in detail in the "rotting god" essay). So when Mainländer says: "The sign of our flag is not the crucified saviour, but the death angel with huge, calm, mild eyes, carried by the dove of the redemption thought" this is exactly the affirmation of the will to die that he means. This death angel he describes is not a frightening guardian, but a sympathetic redeemer. Mainländer does not order his followers to commit suicide, but he invalidates all arguments that are speaking against it.
Entroptimism
I recently came up with the idea of calling this will-to-die-affirming ideology "Entroptimism" (a combination of the words "Entropy" and "Optimism"), because Mainländers philosophy goes beyond antinatalism and efilism. It doesn't only deal with life, it deals with the entire universe. Like described in the other essay, the whole universe is rotting to nothingness and life is just a worthless byproduct that rots to nothingness in a special, but worse way then the rest, because it is sentient. Since there is absolutely no hope for anything in this entire universe, the only reaction to it is absolute pessimism. But - If "somethingness" means 100% hopelessness, then nothingness means 100% hope. If somethingness is hell, nothingness must be heaven, because it's the opposite of somethingness. Therefore, the only reason to be optimistic in this universe, is the fact that it will turn into nothingness, that every single part of it will be redeemed forever by the universal death angel called entropy.
Dienstag, 28. Mai 2013
The rotting God - Mainländers Metaphysic of Entropy
On the Origin of the World
It might be surprising to some, but there actually is a god in Mainländers philosophy. Or to be more precise, there was a god. Before our universe was born, the only thing that existed was the basic unity*, a being in a state that can only be described by negations: It was not bound to time or space or matter. It existed in a transcendental world that has nothing to with the laws of physics or anything else that we know from our world. All we can say about the basic unity, is that is has been and is no longer, it vanished with the birth of our universe, which is the only miracle that ever happened. Everything that happened after that miracle, the very second the universe was born, is our world where our laws of physics make sense. After defining the basic unity as a being that is absolutely different from us and is furthermore the cause of the birth of our entire universe, we can now give that being the name it deserves: God. But we can not try to describe this God any further, because that would mean leaving our reality, projecting logics that only make sense in our world, into another world. The only thing we know is that the basic unity must have been killing itself, because it was the only thing existing before the universe and therefore it couldn't have been killed by anything else, because there wasn't anything that could have killed it. Therefore the universe, as we know it, was born through the suicide of God. God decided that he can't bear his existence anymore and that he wishes to turn into Nothingness. But he was not able to reach that goal without thereby creating our world, because the path from his over-being** to Nothingness required a transition, which is being as we know it, our universe. This entire world is therefore nothing more than God's "body", that is in all its components rotting into nothingness now.
The Universal Law of the Weakening of Power
The course of the universe is therefore defined as a movement from the over-being (God) through the being (our universe) into nothingness. The world itself is the decay in the plurality, that means in egoistic individuals that are fighting each other. This path is predestined and it couldn't have been any other, any shorter or any longer than exactly how it is. The universal law of the weakening of the power (entropy) causes the world to decay in a large amount of unorganic and organic individuals that are all weakening the power of other beings and their environment and the same time getting weakened themself by the overall course of the universe. The purpose of every natural force, every form of matter and every form of life is exclusively to weaken the power sum of the universe by living the path through the state of being into nothingness. Every part of nature is desiring for absolute death, because that is the ultimate goal of every form of matter and life - to turn into nothing.
Teleology of Annihilation
The universe is in a state of harmony, despite all the fighting and slaughtering that is going on in it. It is in harmony, because every part of it origins from the basic unity, the God that killed himself and therefore created the universe. Each individual once was a part of the basic unity, therefore it is exactly what it decided to be, when it was part of God. All the individual beings, no matter if organic or unorganic, are now representing Gods will to die. Therefore, the will to die is the driving force of the universe. In the unorganic kingdom we have gases, liquids and solid substances. The gas only has one striving: to seperate in all directions. If it could unimpededly exert this striving, it would become weaker and weaker. If it truly fulfilled its striving, it would be annihilated. Liquids only have one striving: It wants to flow apart, to an ideal point, that is outside of itself. The striving for an ideal point outside itself is obviously a striving for annihilation, nothingness. Every solid substance or body has only one striving: to an ideal point, which is outside of itself. On our earth this point would be the center of the planet. If it would reach this goal, it would be annihilated the moment it reached it and turn into nothingness.
In the unorganic kingdom we have seen the will to die in its blunt form. Now we move to the organic kingdom, where things are getting a little bit tricky. A plant grows, procreates and dies. While in the unorganic kingdom "life" only meant a repression of the will to die by chemical processes, the plant obviously wants life, because it grows and procreates to turn its absolute death into a relative death, by spreading it's "idea" into the future. Therefore, what we see here for the first time, is the will to live. The plant also has the will to die, but it can't reach it in the straight way, therefore its life is a medium for the purpose to reach death. Animals are initially plants and all we said about plants also goes for them. But what seperates them from each other, is that the animal instinctively fears death. If it realizes any threat for its life it either flees or fights for its life. Obviously, what happened here is that the medium (life) is putting itself in front of the purpose (death). The animal is, just like the unorganic individuals, will to die. While plants developed the will to live as a medium for the purpose to reach the goal, which is death, the animals will to die is now completely masked by the will to live. On the surface the animal only wants life and fears death, but that doesn't change the fact that it will eventually die and therefore deep down it is also the will to die, which is the driving force of everything, because reality itself is nothing more than a rotting God. Humans are initially animals and all we said about animals also goes for them. But what seperates humans from the all the other individuals that repesent the will to die, is that this basic universal will not only gets completely masked like with the animals, but it truly sinks down into the deepest abyss of oblivion and the only thing that seems to be left as the driving force is the will to live. Humans compasionately love their life and even the slightest thought about death disturbes them. The medium coompletely covers the purpose, life is abnormally loved , death is abnormally hated.
Mankind, Civilisation and the Ideal State
The movement of mankind as a whole isn't any other and can't be any other than the movement of the universe. It's the movement from the over-being through the being into the nothingness. Every action of a human, the most nobel just as the lowest, is egoistic. Because just like the devil can't see his fellow people being happy, the saint can't see them being unhappy or suffering. Therefore, the devil and the saint, both act for egoistic reasons and both contribute to the overall movement of mankid. This movements final goal is nothingness of course, but for mankind in special, it is the reaching of the ideal state. The ideal state would be the ultimate utopia, a socialistic paradise to which all efforts of humanity will finally lead. It will be a world without war, hunger and any sufferings beside the sufferings of birth, age and death. All sicknesses will be cured, and people will have lifes of joy with just a very small amount of work, because work will almost completely be deported to machines. So let's take a closer look on the citizens of that ideal state. Are they happy? They would be, if they wouldn't suffer from horrible boredom and an everlasting emptiness in their lifes now. If they even manage to live such a pointless life until natural death, they will not be willing to force new people into this mess by procreating. They have no hope left, because they know that they already reached the ideal state. Therefore, they will come to the conclusion that human life has to end or maybe even that all life has to end, because they finally realized that there is nothing to accomplish for sentience and that it would be better if they never had existed. This will be the point where the movement of humanity (or even the movement of all life on earth) will be fulfilled and the universe would now have to move on without (human) life on earth, to reach its own final goal, which is exactly the same: Turning into nothingness.
Apologia of Suicide
The enlightened human being, equipped with the knowledge about the course of the universe and its movement into Nothingness, should now overcome all fear of death. Only who truly discarded that basic fear, created by the illusion of the will to live, which is just a mask of the true will of all beings - the will to die, is really free. What should contest an individual in that state of mind? Poverty? He has no fear of starvation. Enemies? They could in the worst case kill him, and death has nothing horrible anymore for him. Pain? If pain gets unbearable he gets rid of his body without hesitating. One can reach that state of enlightenment by always remembering that deep inside he wants death, because he is, like everything else, the result of a decision to die, which was the reason for the existence of our entire world. In fact, everyone was once part of the basic unity, therefore anything that happens now to an individual is the result of that very individuals decision that it made back in the basic unity. That means: That nothing in life can hit me that hasn't been chosen by myself before the world got created. Our will to die was created by the suicidal god who decided that not to be is better than to be. Therefore, if one can't take his existence any longer, he should throw it away and turn into nothingness, which is the movement of the entire world.
The View into the Void
The pessimistic philosophy will be for the coming period of history what the pessimistic religion of christianity was for the past. The sign of our flag is not the crucified saviour, but the death angel with huge, calm, mild eyes, carried by the dove of the redemption thought. Redemption of the individual idea one represents, can be reached by not passing the core of this idea to the future. In other words: by not procreating. Who doesn't live on in his progeny, will be absolutely redeemed from existence. And if this form of secure redemption isn't enough for an individual, it has always the possibility of resigning from its life by ending it. The course of the universe has now been proven as the movement from a over-being through a being into nothingness, and therefore it is secure, that redemption will come for everyone and everything. It's that a matter of time, and that timespan is exactly as long as it was decided to be by the basic unity. If an individual wants to phantasize about an Garden of Eden or whatever kind of paradise after death, we should let them, in the deep conviction that they simply can't see that the one and only true paradise is nothingness, which was chosen by the suicidal God as a better state than "somethingness".
* german: "Einfache Einheit" (I couldn't find a perfect translation, but "basic unity" is close
** german: "Über-Sein" ( I have seen the word "über" being translated as "uber" in engslish sometimes, but it looks weird to me, that why i translated it directly to "over")
It might be surprising to some, but there actually is a god in Mainländers philosophy. Or to be more precise, there was a god. Before our universe was born, the only thing that existed was the basic unity*, a being in a state that can only be described by negations: It was not bound to time or space or matter. It existed in a transcendental world that has nothing to with the laws of physics or anything else that we know from our world. All we can say about the basic unity, is that is has been and is no longer, it vanished with the birth of our universe, which is the only miracle that ever happened. Everything that happened after that miracle, the very second the universe was born, is our world where our laws of physics make sense. After defining the basic unity as a being that is absolutely different from us and is furthermore the cause of the birth of our entire universe, we can now give that being the name it deserves: God. But we can not try to describe this God any further, because that would mean leaving our reality, projecting logics that only make sense in our world, into another world. The only thing we know is that the basic unity must have been killing itself, because it was the only thing existing before the universe and therefore it couldn't have been killed by anything else, because there wasn't anything that could have killed it. Therefore the universe, as we know it, was born through the suicide of God. God decided that he can't bear his existence anymore and that he wishes to turn into Nothingness. But he was not able to reach that goal without thereby creating our world, because the path from his over-being** to Nothingness required a transition, which is being as we know it, our universe. This entire world is therefore nothing more than God's "body", that is in all its components rotting into nothingness now.
The Universal Law of the Weakening of Power
The course of the universe is therefore defined as a movement from the over-being (God) through the being (our universe) into nothingness. The world itself is the decay in the plurality, that means in egoistic individuals that are fighting each other. This path is predestined and it couldn't have been any other, any shorter or any longer than exactly how it is. The universal law of the weakening of the power (entropy) causes the world to decay in a large amount of unorganic and organic individuals that are all weakening the power of other beings and their environment and the same time getting weakened themself by the overall course of the universe. The purpose of every natural force, every form of matter and every form of life is exclusively to weaken the power sum of the universe by living the path through the state of being into nothingness. Every part of nature is desiring for absolute death, because that is the ultimate goal of every form of matter and life - to turn into nothing.
Teleology of Annihilation
The universe is in a state of harmony, despite all the fighting and slaughtering that is going on in it. It is in harmony, because every part of it origins from the basic unity, the God that killed himself and therefore created the universe. Each individual once was a part of the basic unity, therefore it is exactly what it decided to be, when it was part of God. All the individual beings, no matter if organic or unorganic, are now representing Gods will to die. Therefore, the will to die is the driving force of the universe. In the unorganic kingdom we have gases, liquids and solid substances. The gas only has one striving: to seperate in all directions. If it could unimpededly exert this striving, it would become weaker and weaker. If it truly fulfilled its striving, it would be annihilated. Liquids only have one striving: It wants to flow apart, to an ideal point, that is outside of itself. The striving for an ideal point outside itself is obviously a striving for annihilation, nothingness. Every solid substance or body has only one striving: to an ideal point, which is outside of itself. On our earth this point would be the center of the planet. If it would reach this goal, it would be annihilated the moment it reached it and turn into nothingness.
In the unorganic kingdom we have seen the will to die in its blunt form. Now we move to the organic kingdom, where things are getting a little bit tricky. A plant grows, procreates and dies. While in the unorganic kingdom "life" only meant a repression of the will to die by chemical processes, the plant obviously wants life, because it grows and procreates to turn its absolute death into a relative death, by spreading it's "idea" into the future. Therefore, what we see here for the first time, is the will to live. The plant also has the will to die, but it can't reach it in the straight way, therefore its life is a medium for the purpose to reach death. Animals are initially plants and all we said about plants also goes for them. But what seperates them from each other, is that the animal instinctively fears death. If it realizes any threat for its life it either flees or fights for its life. Obviously, what happened here is that the medium (life) is putting itself in front of the purpose (death). The animal is, just like the unorganic individuals, will to die. While plants developed the will to live as a medium for the purpose to reach the goal, which is death, the animals will to die is now completely masked by the will to live. On the surface the animal only wants life and fears death, but that doesn't change the fact that it will eventually die and therefore deep down it is also the will to die, which is the driving force of everything, because reality itself is nothing more than a rotting God. Humans are initially animals and all we said about animals also goes for them. But what seperates humans from the all the other individuals that repesent the will to die, is that this basic universal will not only gets completely masked like with the animals, but it truly sinks down into the deepest abyss of oblivion and the only thing that seems to be left as the driving force is the will to live. Humans compasionately love their life and even the slightest thought about death disturbes them. The medium coompletely covers the purpose, life is abnormally loved , death is abnormally hated.
Mankind, Civilisation and the Ideal State
The movement of mankind as a whole isn't any other and can't be any other than the movement of the universe. It's the movement from the over-being through the being into the nothingness. Every action of a human, the most nobel just as the lowest, is egoistic. Because just like the devil can't see his fellow people being happy, the saint can't see them being unhappy or suffering. Therefore, the devil and the saint, both act for egoistic reasons and both contribute to the overall movement of mankid. This movements final goal is nothingness of course, but for mankind in special, it is the reaching of the ideal state. The ideal state would be the ultimate utopia, a socialistic paradise to which all efforts of humanity will finally lead. It will be a world without war, hunger and any sufferings beside the sufferings of birth, age and death. All sicknesses will be cured, and people will have lifes of joy with just a very small amount of work, because work will almost completely be deported to machines. So let's take a closer look on the citizens of that ideal state. Are they happy? They would be, if they wouldn't suffer from horrible boredom and an everlasting emptiness in their lifes now. If they even manage to live such a pointless life until natural death, they will not be willing to force new people into this mess by procreating. They have no hope left, because they know that they already reached the ideal state. Therefore, they will come to the conclusion that human life has to end or maybe even that all life has to end, because they finally realized that there is nothing to accomplish for sentience and that it would be better if they never had existed. This will be the point where the movement of humanity (or even the movement of all life on earth) will be fulfilled and the universe would now have to move on without (human) life on earth, to reach its own final goal, which is exactly the same: Turning into nothingness.
Apologia of Suicide
The enlightened human being, equipped with the knowledge about the course of the universe and its movement into Nothingness, should now overcome all fear of death. Only who truly discarded that basic fear, created by the illusion of the will to live, which is just a mask of the true will of all beings - the will to die, is really free. What should contest an individual in that state of mind? Poverty? He has no fear of starvation. Enemies? They could in the worst case kill him, and death has nothing horrible anymore for him. Pain? If pain gets unbearable he gets rid of his body without hesitating. One can reach that state of enlightenment by always remembering that deep inside he wants death, because he is, like everything else, the result of a decision to die, which was the reason for the existence of our entire world. In fact, everyone was once part of the basic unity, therefore anything that happens now to an individual is the result of that very individuals decision that it made back in the basic unity. That means: That nothing in life can hit me that hasn't been chosen by myself before the world got created. Our will to die was created by the suicidal god who decided that not to be is better than to be. Therefore, if one can't take his existence any longer, he should throw it away and turn into nothingness, which is the movement of the entire world.
The View into the Void
The pessimistic philosophy will be for the coming period of history what the pessimistic religion of christianity was for the past. The sign of our flag is not the crucified saviour, but the death angel with huge, calm, mild eyes, carried by the dove of the redemption thought. Redemption of the individual idea one represents, can be reached by not passing the core of this idea to the future. In other words: by not procreating. Who doesn't live on in his progeny, will be absolutely redeemed from existence. And if this form of secure redemption isn't enough for an individual, it has always the possibility of resigning from its life by ending it. The course of the universe has now been proven as the movement from a over-being through a being into nothingness, and therefore it is secure, that redemption will come for everyone and everything. It's that a matter of time, and that timespan is exactly as long as it was decided to be by the basic unity. If an individual wants to phantasize about an Garden of Eden or whatever kind of paradise after death, we should let them, in the deep conviction that they simply can't see that the one and only true paradise is nothingness, which was chosen by the suicidal God as a better state than "somethingness".
* german: "Einfache Einheit" (I couldn't find a perfect translation, but "basic unity" is close
** german: "Über-Sein" ( I have seen the word "über" being translated as "uber" in engslish sometimes, but it looks weird to me, that why i translated it directly to "over")
Montag, 27. Mai 2013
Introducing the Philosophy of Redemption
Hi everyone, welcome to my new blog. I'm the admin/main writer of the german antinatalism blog .The idea to start this new blog in english language came to my mind when I realized that some of my favourite antinatalist/pessimist philosophers haven't been translated into english yet and are generally barely known in the rest of the world. I thought it would contribute to the worldwide community of antinatalists to spread their philosophy by writing in-depth essays about their books. Also I will translate some of my german writings into english and will also write some new stuff. I will announce the upcoming essays in the antinatalism/efilism groups on facebook and of course I would be happy if I could find some fellow bloggers who might support this project a little bit by sharing links on their sites. Stay tuned for more...
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