Why being an existential animal matters

Quoting schopenhauer1

There is a break in the evolutionary balance between instinct, environment, and learning. his creates a situation whereby the human is in a sort of error loop of reasons and motivation rather than instinct.

Very interesting - and I think, true. But incomplete, because no intelligent animals lives entirely by instinct: they also think and learn and decide. Having undertaken a course of action, they sometimes either to fail to carry it through or abandon it for various reasons. Instinct, emotion, reason; need, reaction, strategy.

I don't have a developed thesis; I just got here. Definitely an interesting subject for thought.

Quoting Vera Mont

Very interesting - and I think, true. But incomplete, because no intelligent animals lives entirely by instinct: they also think and learn and decide. Having undertaken a course of action, they sometimes either to fail to carry it through or abandon it for various reasons. Instinct, emotion, reason; need, reaction, strategy.

I don't have a developed thesis; I just got here. Definitely an interesting subject for thought.

Thanks for comments. So I did predict that answers were going to focus on the idea that animals too have some sort of deliberation, and that may be true, but can you think of how this is different than human deliberation? I am specifically thinking of reasons as motivations, not just intention in general. An animal might desire food, and they might even plan to some extent. But there is still something altogether different regarding this and what a language-bearing being such as a human does. It is this implication of this unique ability that I want to explore.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Humans are an existential animal. That is to say, why we start any endeavor or project (or choose to continue with it or end it) is shaped continually by a deliberative act to do so.

In my experience, both of myself and others, this is not true at all. I think this misunderstanding is a consequence of people not being aware of their own motivations and where they come from.

Quoting schopenhauer1

We generate things that might excite us. Or we generate things we feel we "must do" (even though there is never a must, only an anxiety of not doing based on various perceived fears).

We've had this conversation before. You and I have a different understanding and experience of what it is like to be a human. I don't think that everyone thinks, feels, and lives the same as I do. It seems as if you think they do.

Quoting schopenhauer1

So I did predict that answers were going to focus on the idea that animals too have some sort of deliberation, and that may be true, but can you think of how this is different than human deliberation?

I don't think it is different in kind, though we do a lot more of it, for a lot more diverse goals.

Quoting schopenhauer1

I am specifically thinking of reasons as motivations, not just intention in general.

Only in the diversity. We need things, want things, desire things, want to avoid and evade and escape from things, just like other animals. Only our things are more complex, and much of the complexity is self-generated, while much more is social, or group-generated.

Quoting schopenhauer1

An animal might desire food, and they might even plan to some extent.

It might be worth your while to watch real live animals. Video footage will do, if there isn't a cat or dog in your world.

Quoting schopenhauer1

This is a constant theme and I am going to continue it as I see it of utmost importance to the human animal. Humans are an existential animal. That is to say, why we start any endeavor or project (or choose to continue with it or end it) is shaped continually by a deliberative act to do so.

I think I'd rather say as a condition of existential ethics one presumes a kind of freedom in talking that way. I wouldn't say that all human beings, qua their humanity, are existential. Something I like to highlight in reference to existentialism is how in spite of the existential condition, people by and large do not act in this deliberative manner -- including me!

But that doesn't go against an existential creed -- I'm not a pure being of active deliberation. I have attachments arrived at by means other than making a choice. And I'm comfortable with that. Now, with respect to the existential condition, which I believe to be the case, the one thing I could point out is just because I'm comfortable doesn't mean I'm free of choice. I could choose against my comfort. And, in fact, sometimes it is good to do so.

But there's probably not a good rule for such times. Hence my hesitation on your focusing upon "deliberation"

Quoting schopenhauer1

Humans are an existential animal. That is to say, why we start any endeavor or project (or choose to continue with it or end it) is shaped continually by a deliberative act to do so. We generate things that might excite us. Or we generate things we feel we "must do" (even though there is never a must, only an anxiety of not doing based on various perceived fears).

I think this is largely accurate.

Quoting schopenhauer1

the human is in a sort of error loop of reasons and motivation rather than instinct.

I think this is nice line and it resonates with me.

This is a theme which occurred to me around the time I was leaving high school and pondering what went into human purpose - why people as adults held particular jobs and had families and set up homes. It all seemed frightfully preordained and predictable and utterly lacking in visceral inspiration.

Reply to Tom Storm Ooooo. Some interesting disagreement! :)

What do you make of habit?

Reply to Moliere Did I disagree? That's not my intention.

Quoting Moliere

What do you make of habit?

Depends on what you count as habit. An addiction is a kind of habit. I work in the area of addiction and mental illness - people seem to become dependent on patterns. Some personality types more than others. Making substantive change in life is often about developing new patterns (habits).

I think some people are more drawn to predictability and familiarity and ritual than others. Take Kant - he was so predictable people used to set their watches by his daily walk (or se we are told). Perhaps habits are ways of making ourselves more comfortable in our environment. No doubt there is a fancier psychological explanation which would probably bore me rigid. :wink:

Reply to Tom Storm The sentence I had in mind was "Humans are existential animals" and that was the part I had meant to disagree with, especially in regards to deliberation: it just seemed too... false? Most people do not deliberate their every action, after all. I wanted to correct this notion to something more like "people *could* deliberate their actions"

Maybe too fine a distinction, since you're noting you agreed :)

But that's why I asked about habit. Habit, to me, seems like the obvious counter-example that people do things deliberately. We often do things not for a reason, but simply because we did it yesterday (no and! And is post hoc).

Reply to Moliere I hear you. Sometimes where we are being deliberate we are actually unconscious of what it is that is informing our choices. We can be deliberate and clueless simultaneously. I do think the familiarity of patterns is a factor.

Reply to Tom Storm Cool.

I agree the familiarity of patterns is a factor. I think that's a large part of why I wanted to push against this notion of deliberation! "familiarity" is a comfort, one which I also go back to: I like what's familiar. I'm sure others do too.

And you're right in saying we can be both. I think that's why I wanted to highlight how existential ethics presupposes freedom. "The unconscious" basically unseats freedom. It stops freedom from being an ethical consideration -- and it's not the only theory which limits freedom either. Including, from the angle I've been talking, material freedom.

I think I'm just trying to point out that condition. There are times...

Quoting Tom Storm

where we are being deliberate we are actually unconscious of what it is that is informing our choices. We can be deliberate and clueless simultaneously.

And that's a point to undermine existential ethics. If there ever is a time we are not free, then it's not bad faith -- it's a lack of freedom.

Reply to Moliere Nice. In my life I have never assumed that people have access to freedom in any radical sense. Some people certainly have more choices and some have a more radically imaginative power that affords them opportunities to perceive and pursue more choices. But I'm afraid freedom hasn't been a theme which has preoccupied me much.

Do you have a working definition of what it is to be a person with freedom in choice and deed? But perhaps this is derailing the OP.

Quoting Tom Storm

I think this is nice line and it resonates with me.

Glad it resonated.

Reply to Vera Mont Reply to Moliere

So let me give some phenomenological aspects here:
1) You "wake up" and get out of bed. You decide to go to the bathroom. Perhaps this is habit/routine, though. It is just something you do because you have done it. You reflect and say "Nah, I'm going straight to coffee this morning. I'll worry about that other stuff in a minute". You broke the routine. You recognized it and did something else. You gave a reason for it, even if post-facto (you want a caffeeine fix before anything else, besides, it might help you um, do the other thing better :grimace:).

2) You brush your teeth out of habit/routine when someone calls your name from the bedroom. You instantly lookback as was more or less reflexive to react to a stimuli, especially one that seems to be addressing you. This perhaps is more in line with normal animal behavior.

3) You decide to work in the garden. No, you don't want to do it today. You know the plants need attending, but the hot sun is annoying and you really just want to be lazy. But no, you feel a sense of duty to the plants. You must. You cannot watch them die. But of course, you can do anything you want.

Anyways, the variations are endless. But the point is there is a deliberative aspect whereby reasons are there (post-facto or not) with some degree of reflectivity and habitual routines, but these are much more malleable and in fact, they all kind of feed in and out of each other, with a heavy emphasis that there is a self-reflective element, even if not quite deliberative (we may KNOW we are addicted but still always decide against breaking it. In fact there seems to be almost no decision to be made, one is doing it).

So anyways, the point is, this is all recognized and understood by yours truly. I get it. We don't have to parse this understanding out and belabor this point. Rather, I want to re-adjust back to what the OP is really getting at and that is that we are existential animals. So, what I mean is more the self-reflective element. We KNOW we could do otherwise (even if comfort of habit makes us decide one way mostly). This is an exhaustive extra layer. It is a continual judgement that rides on top of things. I don't just survive by learning mechanisms and instincts combining. I DECIDE to do something, sometimes against what I would really like to do (I don't want to tend to the plants, but I don't want to see them die) and JUDGE things (I don't like seeing the plants die). I don't have to do any of that though (I can watch the plants die and live without a garden).This is more what I mean for it to be existential. I am not denying that we can do things by routine, but it is the fact that we know that we can fall into a routine, that it is quite iterative above and beyond simply routine.

Quoting schopenhauer1

it is shaped continually by a deliberative act to do so

That our existence is a series of deliberate acts is a fiction created by our minds, which SEEM to make decisions based on rational considerations. The fiction is created when desire or need compels our brains to come up with a method to satisfy desire/need. It seem like we sought the solution voluntarily.

Signmund Freud famously said "We are not masters of our own houses." We don't have much intellectual control over the wishes and needs that drive our thinking and behavior. We share this feature with the rest of the animal kingdom to which we belong.

There is a tremendous range of possible outcomes in the way our wishes and needs are, or are not rsolved. This variety adds to the sense of our voluntary invention, but it's not voluntary. Life isn't any less enjoyable (or horrible) because we aren't in charge. Further we can reflect upon our lives, ad come to understand at least some of the terms under which we exist.

BUT, reflective understanding or not, we're still not doing a whole lot 'deliberately'.

Reply to BC
Please see my last reply. It will shortcut this.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/783929

Quoting schopenhauer1

You "wake up" and get out of bed. You decide to go to the bathroom. Perhaps this is habit/routine, though. It is just something you do because you have done it.

No, it's something you do because otherwise you'd soil your nightclothes. Bodies have imperatives that cannot be denied.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You broke the routine. You recognized it and did something else.

Maybe you can. At my age, when nature calls, I answer, no excuses, no delays. After a long sleep, most people can't decide to put off urinating. And once you're in the bathroom, it's more efficient to take care of the ablutions than make a detour.

Quoting schopenhauer1

You brush your teeth out of habit/routine

And because neglecting oral hygiene is both painful and expensive in the long run.

Quoting schopenhauer1

when someone calls your name from the bedroom. You instantly lookback

Someone? Who's likely to call from the direction of your bedroom? Someone who matters to you. Of course you respond; it may be important.

Quoting schopenhauer1

But of course, you can do anything you want.

And everything you do has consequences. As a rational animal, you know the probable consequences, so you weigh the risks against the rewards.

Quoting schopenhauer1

In fact there seems to be almost no decision to be made, one is doing it).

People do have routines and habits, yes. Those routines were developed because they worked for that person. When they stop working, we change them. Addiction and external constraint may be factors, so that our autonomous choices are limited. And if we only have to make seven decisions in a hour instead of 49. So what?

Quoting schopenhauer1

I am specifically thinking of reasons as motivations, not just intention in general. An animal might desire food, and they might even plan to some extent. But there is still something altogether different regarding this and what a language-bearing being such as a human does. It is this implication of this unique ability that I want to explore.

I used to wonder about the meaning of "instinct" - as in when people say, or experts say, "animals act on instinct, humans on reason". I thought, humans have instincts too. Don't we act on instinct, too?

But a sociology professor once made a point about the use of the word. When an expert say instinct, they mean a trait or behavior exhibited prior to intelligence. Of course, what is intelligence? Intelligence as reasoning -- a deliberative weighing of alternative options or decisions. Animal instincts do not rely on options. When you throw food on the ground for the animals, they do their instinct and grab, or even fight over, the food. They're not going to stop and divide evenly and fairly the piece of meat so everyone can eat. They don't feel shame either for wanting to take the whole piece. There's no shame in fighting over food among animals.

Reply to schopenhauer1 I had not read your response to Storm, Mont, or Moliere.

Quoting Vera Mont

As a rational animal,

Well, maybe, sort of, sometimes, or not.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Humans are an existential animal.

If by "existential" you mean reality-denying, I agree with you.

Quoting schopenhauer1

There is something more I am trying to say,

Only that because we’re existential, we’re more than animal, as a couple of others have also noted.

To find meaning in what one does or is, regardless of the degree of volition giving rise to the doing or being. As an example, you might be in the Army and be assigned to a hospital ward to assist with the disabled. At first you find this task upsetting, possibly revolting in some instances, but as time passes you have a change of heart and find deep meaning in your work.

Another example, you are young, casting about for a purpose in life, and an older friend gives you an amateur artist's kit while you are recovering from an injury. You find you have a natural talent and love what you've discovered, making it the vital theme of your life from then on.

In both examples meaning arises and is embraced. Once it is triggered, you are hooked.

Quoting schopenhauer1

That is to say, why we start any endeavor or project (or choose to continue with it or end it) is shaped continually by a deliberative act to do so

Reply to Wayfarer Every animal is more than just an "animal". Don't be speciesist :smirk:

Quoting Vera Mont

No, it's something you do because otherwise you'd soil your nightclothes. Bodies have imperatives that cannot be denied.

Yes it can, you can indeed soil your nightclothes. But that would be uncomfortable otherwise. You have a reason not to.

Quoting Vera Mont

And because neglecting oral hygiene is both painful and expensive in the long run.

And there is a reason.

Quoting Vera Mont

Someone? Who's likely to call from the direction of your bedroom? Someone who matters to you. Of course you respond; it may be important.

Sure, another reason.

Quoting Vera Mont

People do have routines and habits, yes. Those routines were developed because they worked for that person. When they stop working, we change them. Addiction and external constraint may be factors, so that our autonomous choices are limited. And if we only have to make seven decisions in a hour instead of 49. So what?

So my point was the extra burden of the extra effort for motivation.

Going back to the garden, or a job we rather not do otherwise than getting paid. We provide narratives and reasons to ourselves for why we start, continue, or finish a project or task. Maybe not the only way we operate, but certainly a large and very human aspect of it, that I don't believe is the same for other animals. We can debate its origins in the human (language-based cognition, episodic memory vs. other forms, going beyond associative memory, etc.). But that's not the focus of my OP. It is the extra burden of this existential situation.

Every time I bring this idea up, it is like there is a bug in this forum where no member quite understands what I am getting at but wants to debate animal cognition, losing site of the focus, and throwing up red herrings or getting lost in non-essential tangents rather than productive dialogue on our existential situation.

Quoting L'éléphant

I used to wonder about the meaning of "instinct" - as in when people say, or experts say, "animals act on instinct, humans on reason". I thought, humans have instincts too. Don't we act on instinct, too?

Funny you say that, I heard a segment from a scientist who conducted studies to show how what we often contribute to instinct in animals is actually a learned aspect. Thus "instinct" is really a placeholder not for true "innate" mechanisms, but a combination of innate and learned mechanisms which are associated with less deliberative, very specific behaviors to stimuli. But though interesting, still a digression, so I'll copy and paste my generic response:

So my point was the extra burden of the extra effort for motivation.

Going back to the garden, or a job we rather not do otherwise than getting paid. We provide narratives and reasons to ourselves for why we start, continue, or finish a project or task. Maybe not the only way we operate, but certainly a large and very human aspect of it, that I don't believe is the same for other animals. We can debate its origins in the human (language-based cognition, episodic memory vs. other forms, going beyond associative memory, etc.). But that's not the focus of my OP. It is the extra burden of this existential situation.

Every time I bring this idea up, it is like there is a bug in this forum where no member quite understands what I am getting at but wants to debate animal cognition, losing site of the focus, and throwing up red herrings or getting lost in non-essential tangents rather than productive dialogue on our existential situation.

Quoting BC

Well, maybe, sort of, sometimes, or not.

So my point was the extra burden of the extra effort for motivation.

Going back to the garden, or a job we rather not do otherwise than getting paid. We provide narratives and reasons to ourselves for why we start, continue, or finish a project or task. We can stop at any time in any task's duration, but we carry on anyways. We can literally move to another location on the other side of the planet if we had the means to get there. Sure, that would cause other things, but then we have to judge and decide on that situation. We may have a tendency to do things, but at all times, we are judging based on standards, values, ideas of what we think is good or preferable. Maybe not the only way we operate, but certainly a large and very human aspect of it, that I don't believe is the same for other animals. We can debate its origins in the human (language-based cognition, episodic memory vs. other forms, going beyond associative memory, etc.). But that's not the focus of my OP. It is the extra burden of this existential situation.

Every time I bring this idea up, it is like there is a bug in this forum where no member quite understands what I am getting at but wants to debate animal cognition, losing site of the focus, and throwing up red herrings or getting lost in non-essential tangents rather than productive dialogue on our existential situation.

We can literally move to another location on the other side of the planet if we had the means to get there. Sure, that would cause other things, but then we have to judge and decide on that situation. We may have a tendency to do things, but at all times, we are judging based on standards, values, ideas of what we think is good or preferable. Other animals might prefer, but they don't base it on standards, values, future they fear if the do or don't do something, etc. It's more "in the moment", though it could be associative. That is not to say they don't fear or even project into the future to some extent, but it's not the same phenomenology that I am discussing for a language-based fully existential, self-reflective animal like a human. I am NOT positing that animals have no "reasoning" to some extent, so please don't red herring this again :roll:.

That being the case, I can let the plants die, but I decide not to. That being said, I can stop working and not work, but then the anxiety of leaving people without saying a word, the anxiety of looking for another thing, of not getting money, etc. You see, I just decided that these things were important, though I could decide otherwise. Perhaps freedom from work is most important to me at all costs to the point I'd rather live under an underpass than work for the Man. You see, we have a large degree of deliberative freedom, and this causes the burden of knowing we can do things which we didn't necessarily "have" to do, but do "anyways" because we decide things continually to do or not do. This, whilst praised in the main, is I see a burden of the human. This is the error loop where nothing is justified.

I drank the coffee because I wanted to. It's a routine sure, but it's a routine based on a heuristic whereby if someone asked "Why are you drinking coffee" I'd say, "Because I like coffee". Yeah but why have something you like? Then it would be something like, "I prefer to satisfy my preferences if I can". But these are all narratives. I could decide that I will not satisfy my preferences. I might decide that I don't like the other affects of coffee besides the caffeine or taste. I could decide any number of things and deliberate on it. In the end, I went with a decision and gave a narrative to it. Often we default to routine as a justification, but because we can decide otherwise, that too was simply a justification. It is still part of the error loop.

@Moliere @BC, @L'éléphant @Vera Mont @Tom Storm @Wayfarer

Quoting schopenhauer1

So my point was the extra burden of the extra effort for motivation.

Huh? Extra beyond what basic standard of burden? There is a reason for everything that happens or is done in the world, even if we don't know all the reasons.

Quoting schopenhauer1

We provide narratives and reasons to ourselves for why we start, continue, or finish a project or task.

We're a narrating species. Our entire memory-bank is an archive of stories we told ourselves about ourselves and what we saw, heard, felt and thought about.

Quoting schopenhauer1

We may have a tendency to do things, but at all times, we are judging based on standards, values, ideas of what we think is good or preferable.

Yes. And?

Quoting schopenhauer1

Often we default to routine as a justification,

No, we don't. We don't justify our routine actions, and don't feel any compulsion to justify them. Only when we decided to do something unexpected, contrary to routine, or counterproductive, do we feel any need for justification, and the one we give may not be the real reason.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Every time I bring this idea up, it is like there is a bug in this forum where no member quite understands what I am getting at but wants to debate animal cognition,

You brought up other animals, made a comparison.

losing site of the focus, and throwing up red herrings or getting lost in non-essential tangents rather than productive dialogue on our existential situation.

I have been trying to discern a focus, and failing. You think "an existential animal" has some kind of burden by thinking about itself. I don't get what productive dialogue about this could produce.

Quoting Vera Mont

Huh? Extra beyond what basic standard of burden?

There is no burden like this for other animals, for example. They have burdens, but not this burden.

Quoting Vera Mont

We're a narrating species. Our entire memory-bank is an archive of stories we told ourselves about ourselves and what we saw, heard, felt and thought about.

Ok, I agree here.

Quoting Vera Mont

Yes. And?

The burden of continuing, stopping or justifying any action we take. Go to work, whatever. We make stories up that is it.

Quoting Vera Mont

No, we don't. We don't justify our routine actions, and don't feel any compulsion to justify them. Only when we decided to do something unexpected, contrary to routine, or counterproductive, do we feel any need for justification, and the one we give may not be the real reason.

This is bullshit because you smuggled in the value of "counterproductive" there is no objective "productive" that means "this is what I should be doing". You are making a narrative a statement of obvious truth, which it isn't. I'm surprised you did that. We seem to agree these justifications are a narrative, not a hard fact. But we may say, "This leads to me not getting resources in the future". It is still a narrative that we are judging whether we want or not want. I can stop working at any time. I can stop living at any time, though both may be painful in the present or future and we do give ourselves a narrative that these decisions lead to things which we deem negative.

Quoting Vera Mont

You brought up other animals, made a comparison.

Because it is another way-of-being that is not ours and people automatically want to contest that. If people can't figure out how a dog is different than a human, then we have bigger problems and I don't want to discuss that meaningless exercise in contrarianism in this thread, because I think the differences are more obvious than people who are debating it are trying to earnestly appeal here.

Quoting Vera Mont

I have been trying to discern a focus, and failing. You think "an existential animal" has some kind of burden by thinking about itself. I don't get why this needs discussing.

Right, you aren't getting it.

Quoting schopenhauer1

This is bullshit because you smuggled in the value of "counterproductive"

It's not smuggled in. It's right out ion the open. The kind of actions for which we seek justification are the ones we consider wrong, exceptional, peculiar, questionable, or use whatever term you like for "that which is not producing desired results."

Quoting schopenhauer1

there is no objective "productive" that means "this is what I should be doing"

That's quite possible, and it's also possible that we can never agree on what we should be doing, just as you must have meant something by "productive dialogue" that I did not understand .

Quoting schopenhauer1

You are making a narrative a statement of obvious truth, which it isn't.

I was expressing a firmly held opinion, based on observation of human behaviour. I have, never, not once, heard anyone else explain why they went to the bathroom in the morning before making coffee, (though I can imagine someone who made that detour explaining that they're in a hurry and want the coffee ready when they're done in the bathroom) or why they brush their teeth (though I have heard excuses why someone doesn't), or why they eat rather than starve (If they do choose to starve, they have some compelling reason, like a hunger strike, or religious fast or dieting), or go to work (but there are plenty of justifications for not going to work!), or tend the vegetables they planted rather than let them die (though people who neglect their garden do give an explanation why or how that was unavoidable), or answer when someone calls their name (but they justify failing to respond). I assumed all this time that other people also think these habitual actions have obvious reasons that do not require explanation.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Right, you aren't getting it.

Is anyone?

Quoting Vera Mont

I assumed all this time that other people also think these actions have obvious reasons that do not require explanation.

Reasons. You said it. I’ll walk you through it. Someone decides to keep working even though they don’t want to. Why?

You can stupidly debate me on this point but a cow let’s say doesn’t say that it hates to chew it’s grass and cud but knows it must to survive. It doesn’t have the burdens of reasons, that is.

Quoting schopenhauer1

It doesn’t have the burdens of reasons, that is.

Lucky Cow! Was that productive for you?

Quoting Vera Mont

Lucky Cow! Was that productive for you?

Yes, very.

Quoting schopenhauer1

But that's not the focus of my OP. It is the extra burden of this existential situation.

Every time I bring this idea up, it is like there is a bug in this forum where no member quite understands what I am getting at but wants to debate animal cognition, losing site of the focus, and throwing up red herrings or getting lost in non-essential tangents rather than productive dialogue on our existential situation.

I honestly still do not get your point, except this is leading to the idea that not being born is better. Am I right?
I can't have a rational discussion about the choice of existing and not existing because they're not in the same realm. Debating the comparison is not productive or it is useless.

@schopenhauer1
Quoting 180 Proof

Humans are an existential animal.
— schopenhauer1

If by "existential" you mean reality-denying, I agree with you

No doubt we're counterfactual (talking) animals.

Quoting 180 Proof

No doubt we're counterfactual (talking) animals.

Yes agreed. The going to work example:

I don't want to work, but I will continue because of X. You know you can do otherwise, but you continue with the thing you'd rather not do. I consider this a burden. A bear eats its berries or it starves, but it (as far as I know) can't think "Well, why do I have to keep on foraging for berries everyday. I really rather just sit and stare at the stars, but here I go, continuing perpetually until I die or gather enough berries to retire". Obviously I'm being absurd here, but in a way, the error loop we find ourselves in is absurd. The other animals seem more content not having to deal with this it seems. The self-reflective is the evolutionary error (to the individual) even though it was a (emergent over time) solution (for the species).

Peter Wessel Zapffe, The Last Messiah:The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.

After placing the source of anguish in human intellect, Zapffe then sought as to why humanity simply didn't just perish. He concluded humanity "performs, to extend a settled phrase, a more or less self-conscious repression of its damaging surplus of consciousness" and that this was "a requirement of social adaptability and of everything commonly referred to as healthy and normal living."[1] He provided four defined mechanisms of defense that allowed an individual to overcome their burden of intellect.

Remedies against panic
Isolation is the first method Zapffe noted. It is defined as "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling". He cites "One should not think, it is just confusing" as an example.[1]
Anchoring, according to Zapffe, is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness". The anchoring mechanism provides individuals a value or an ideal that allows them to focus their attentions in a consistent manner. Zapffe compared this mechanism to Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's concept of the life-lie from the play The Wild Duck, where the family has achieved a tolerable modus vivendi by ignoring the skeletons and by permitting each member to live in a dreamworld of his own. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society, and stated "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future" are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments. He noted flaws in the principle's ability to properly address the human condition, and warned against the despair provoked resulting from discovering one's anchoring mechanism was false. Another shortcoming of anchoring is conflict between contradicting anchoring mechanisms, which Zapffe posits will bring one to destructive nihilism.[1]
Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions."[1] Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.
Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones.

Quoting L'éléphant

I honestly still do not get your point

Me neither. Perhaps it's simply that we are born without meaning of existence somehow programmed into our brains, and yet a need for it, and must constantly deal with the burden of creating meaning in our lives. This, apparently, is suffering we must endure. Why doesn't society give us money so we can go live under a bridge and snort drugs? Why must we be born into such a fix? :roll:

Reply to schopenhauer1 Yeah, P.W. Zapffe is one of my favorites listed on my TPF profile. :death: :flower:

Quoting 180 Proof

Yeah, P.W. Zapffe is one of my favorites listed on my TPF profile.

He does have some good points for sure about the human condition and seems to fit nicely with the ideas I was playing around with about the burden of having and needing reasons.

The idea of death as the greatest consolation and escape, and which is always at hand, penetrates me with even greater force

(Zapffe)

And yet he lived to the ripe old age of 90. Also, he was a noted climber, so his existential search was not unfruitful.

Quoting jgill

And yet he lived the ripe old age of 90. Also, he was a noted climber, so his existential search was not unfruitful.

But isn't mountain climbing the perfect metaphor for getting nowhere? :grin:

Quoting schopenhauer1

But isn't mountain climbing the perfect metaphor for getting nowhere? :grin:

Rather, getting to the edge of nowhere. Big difference. :cool:

Quoting jgill

Rather, getting to the edge of nowhere. Big difference.

I rather see it like this:

Quoting schopenhauer1

I rather see it like this:

And that's why you're not a climber. You should try it. Might lead to an existential breakthrough. Can't hurt (since death is admirable).

Look how doing it has built your climber's muscles! His self-esteem is surging. Look on the bright side! :smile:

Reply to schopenhauer1 :up: Just like breathing ...

Reply to schopenhauer1 Destinations are a relatively modern human concept. Over the past couple of centuriess too this appears to be a rather weird concern of many … the ‘goal’ or ‘target’.

Quoting I like sushi

Over the past couple of centuriess too this appears to be a rather weird concern of many … the ‘goal’ or ‘target’.

You mean the Medicis didn't have goals and Alexander didn't aim for targets?

Reply to schopenhauer1 I find it interesting to discover what things are uniquely human or at the least shared between humans and only a few other animals.

We do really seem very set apart/ different from any other animals that came before us. As humanitys activities are wildly more diverse and complex than any other animal.
I think despite their complexity, some of them do come down to the same basic impulses/instincts and needs of more simple creatures.

As for the rest, why is that?
Why for example are we exceedingly fascinated with creating and appreciating art unlike most other animals. I say most, because despite maybe not being considered art, many animals do preoccupy themselves with decorating their habitat, usually for a mate.

It could be see as some ritualistic courting display or it could truly be that they enjoy the art of different styles of decoration and find that attractive.

Of course it's near impossible for humans to truly know or gain such depths of insight into the psychology of other animals.

But whatever the case, we are very unique in many ways - our behaviours, values, interactions and awareness/relationship with the natural world.

And I do wonder where that all comes from? Why are we just so damn different in so many ways. What drives evolution to produce such an outlier, one that perhaps can even take charge of their own evolution, shape and recreate/reinvent themselves?

For humans, the sky truly is the limit. And even then, it is not. Blast off.

Quoting Benj96

But whatever the case, we are very unique in many ways - our behaviours, values, interactions and awareness/relationship with the natural world. And I do wonder where that all comes from?

I'm sure some evolutionary reasons. Our evolutionary path was that of flexibility over specific modules to handle situations. These in turn, were probably a kind of Red Queen scenario where each new advantage created its own problems which needed more ratcheting. So for example, it may have started out simply with walking upright continually, which freed up hands for tools. As with other primates, tool-use is not new. But the complete freedom from using hands for mobility and bipedalism created the opportunity for more exploration. This in turn favored higher rates of pre-frontal cortex formations for abstract and long-term planning. This created the situation where social pressures needed even more ratcheting for there to be awareness of intent and understanding social relations. The shift to some language-based thinking that could have been due to various mutations (FOXp2 gene for example), along with exaptations like the the mirror-neuron system (that is just one idea), might have helped in developing dedicated regions like Wernicke and Broca's region of the brain. This in turn ratcheted up things exponentially as symbolic thought combined with a general processing brain (not specified to certain tasks and responses), created the goal-directed, reason-producing, narrative creating human being we saw appear 500,000-150,000 years ago.

But though interesting, I am trying to showcase the burden that this kind of cognition carries. We are an animal that knows it does not have to, but does it anyways. A chimp forages and hunts in its environment but it almost certainly doesn't have to motivate itself. Sure depression is something that can be seen in animals, but it is not necessarily the same as a daily struggle for providing reasons. We know there are nasty, shitty, crappy, negative aspects that we don't want to encounter, and we must grapple with that and overcome that. If we didn't, we would literally die.

Quoting schopenhauer1

So I did predict that answers were going to focus on the idea that animals too have some sort of deliberation, and that may be true, but can you think of how this is different than human deliberation? I am specifically thinking of reasons as motivations, not just intention in general. An animal might desire food, and they might even plan to some extent. But there is still something altogether different regarding this and what a language-bearing being such as a human does. It is this implication of this unique ability that I want to explore.

Humans stand out in three particularly striking ways. We can commit suicide, we can sacrifice ourselves/risk life and limb for the "greater good" and we can choose to be celibate.

Those three facts suggest we truly do have the power to completely override every core instinct to survive that has been fostered and nurtured in our bodies through millenia of evolution.

I think that is more significant than it is given credit for. We are indeed free, we have broken away from natural imperative - the continuity of life.

Why? Why would nature ever allow for a level of conscious awareness, of complexity, to undermine its sole drive like that?

In that way we could almost consider ourselves supernatural. No other living thing demonstrates such abilities to such degrees. Perhaps hives/colonies can be considered as disoensibke units in that for example ants can sacrifice themselves for the safety of the colony. But we differ in that we can commit suicide for purely personal reasons rather than to further society.

Instinct seems to predominate for them to a degree that these abilities have not been documented.

Quoting Benj96

Humans stand out in three particularly striking ways. We can commit suicide, we can sacrifice ourselves/risk life and limb for the "greater good" and we can choose to be celibate.

Interesting. I can think of many others, but existentially speaking, these are goodQuoting Benj96

I think that is more significant than it is given credit for. We are indeed free, we have broken away from natural imperative - the continuity of life.

Yep, I called it an error loop. We are thus stuck with giving reasons for anything. We cannot just "be". Even "deciding" to "just be" (some Buddhist sounding stuff) is a deliberate decision we still grapple and internalize. Also, at the end of the day, we got to deal with things we do not like, Buddhist claims aside.

Quoting Benj96

Why? Why would nature ever allow for a level of conscious awareness, of complexity, to undermine its sole drive like that?

Exaptation. It was not adapted for, but a byproduct of a general processing directionality in evolutionary trajectory. We veered away from innate models of being and adapted for general processes of learning. Again probably due to tool-use, social complexity interplaying with the exaptations and then adaptations for symbolic thought.

Quoting Benj96

In that way we could almost consider ourselves supernatural. No other living thing demonstrates such abilities to such degrees. Perhaps hives/colonies can be considered as disoensibke units in that for example ants can sacrifice themselves for the safety of the colony. But we differ in that we can commit suicide for purely personal reasons rather than to further society.

We commit suicide for personal and even existential reasons. What's the point? I don't like this game anymore. That sort of thing.

Quoting Benj96

Instinct seems to predominate for them to a degree that these abilities have not been documented.

Yes.





.

Quoting schopenhauer1

We commit suicide for personal and even existential reasons. What's the point? I don't like this game anymore. That sort of thing.

Exactly. Well said. And this is quite defining of humanity. Albeit a sullen/sombre distinction. But we have a say in our existence that I'm not sure other animals have as much autonomy in. And that is quite remarkable.

I agree that we really have transfigured to a nature that is based more on symbolic value (accompanying our highly sophisticated and nuanced languages) than innate biologic values - like sex, food and competition.
We can be asexual, anorexic, and passive. And importantly we have the choice to do these things. Instinct does not grip us as it does the rest of the animal kingdom.

As humans, we are conceptualisers. We differ from animals in our ability to not only develop sophisticated enquiries (philosophy), but also in being swayed by them - adjusting our behaviour with them.

In essence, we think beyond. And sometimes that's our greatest merit, in other cases its our greatest flaw.

Quoting Benj96

Exactly. Well said. And this is quite defining of humanity. Albeit a sullen/sombre distinction. But we have a say in our existence that I'm not sure other animals have as much autonomy in. And that is quite remarkable.

I think my point was that other animals don't even have that in their way of life. They are much more present, immediate, and specific in their intentionality. They don't have the burden of "Why or what should I do with my life" at each and every moment. Or the possibility of that. Of course it is hard for humans to stay truly "authentic" as Existentialists would say. Many times we really do live out our lives in habits and roles we "fall into" rather than "take on" which would indeed be as they would say, "bad faith". But it would be exhausting I am sure to always be "authentically" living as each moment could have been counterfactually lived another way.

Quoting Benj96

I agree that we really have transfigured to a nature that is based more on symbolic value (accompanying our highly sophisticated and nuanced languages) than innate biologic values - like sex, food and competition.
We can be asexual, anorexic, and passive. And importantly we have the choice to do these things. Instinct does not grip us as it does the rest of the animal kingdom.

Agreed.
Quoting Benj96

As humans, we are conceptualisers. We differ from animals in our ability to not only develop sophisticated enquiries (philosophy), but also in being swayed by them - adjusting our behaviour with them.

In essence, we think beyond. And sometimes that's our greatest merit, in other cases its our greatest flaw.

As I said, I think it is quite a burden above and on top of simply surviving that other animals only have to deal with. The fact that I know that I don't like working but that I have to do it anyways to survive, is not just the thorn in the side, but the dagger in the flesh (to take a phrase from Cioran).

Quoting Benj96

Why would nature ever allow for a level of conscious awareness, of complexity, to undermine its sole drive like that?

Just a guess – it might have something to do with 'Gödel's proof of incompleteness from self-referential complexity' (Seth Lloyd, Douglas Hofstadter). It's reasonable to assume that the vast majority of h. sapiens have not deviated significantly from our 'evolved biological drives' but it is always possible, no matter how improbable, to do so because those drives (which seem computable (i.e. algorithmic)) are either 'incomplete' or, more likely, not always / inexorably 'consistent'. :chin:

Reply to 180 Proof Well said. I agree.

Furthermore, it seems like the very neccesity of evolution in the first place is because simple steady state survival is incomplete. Not yet possible. Nor may it ever be. The only other option, is to improve and approach some fully complete, nth degree of complexity that really liberates an organism and by that I mean they become immortal.

If survival of the fittest is the game. Immortality is the trophy. The greatest degree of fitness.

And individual genes do this much better than we do as holistic collections of thousands of genes. As one gene can be passed from parent to offspring for thousands of lifetimes. There are genes in our bodies which have been protected from mutation for millenia by the sheer volume of other genes insulating it, and instructing the machinery neccesary to copy them all, with many not making it, getting damaged or mutated along the way, or simply deleted.

But few, maybe a tiny percentage, perhaps by sheer odds, lick or maybe by inherent fitness, have managed to stay relatively the same for a very long time indeed.

Whatever those more immortal genes are, they likely govern the most conserved and vital parts of our organism, and the operations that we see across most of the animal kingdom, for example the maintenance and function of mitochondria, or the hemoglobin in our blood, or the membrane proteins that allow our heart to spontaneously contract. Those functions have been around from the earliest multicellular complex organisms and continue to be essential to our on going survival.

Blue eyes, earlobes, being able to roll our tongue, we'll, not so much. So maybe they are not as old and wise veterans as the other genes.

Quoting schopenhauer1

Many times we really do live out our lives in habits and roles we "fall into" rather than "take on" which would indeed be as they would say, "bad faith".

Well, I think we can apply to animals and plants too. The seed of a tree quite literally "falls into" a specific habit (habitat).

In that the exact conditions faced by that little sapling are unique to it. A little bit different to the other trees nearby or far away. Different soil quality, different light exposure, different access to water, protection from the wind etc. They must grow in a specific way to maximise the conditions they fell into if they are to compete adequately with any of the others for resources.

Sone are lucky and have little pressure to survive easily, others are not so lucky and everything is a battle for them to make it. Some are adaptable and some are not.

But in the end every organism faces unique spatiotemporal dynamics and conditions that they had no choice in, all they have is a set of instructions (genetics) to make do the best they can.

It's the nature verse nurture argument a bit. Does what any given human does with their life, who they meet, what career they take, what decisions they make, depend on circumstance, or on their inherited genes?

Who is to say we aren't doing exactly what is personally instinctual all the time?

Quoting schopenhauer1

So anyways, the point is, this is all recognized and understood by yours truly. I get it. We don't have to parse this understanding out and belabor this point. Rather, I want to re-adjust back to what the OP is really getting at and that is that we are existential animals. So, what I mean is more the self-reflective element. We KNOW we could do otherwise (even if comfort of habit makes us decide one way mostly). This is an exhaustive extra layer. It is a continual judgement that rides on top of things. I don't just survive by learning mechanisms and instincts combining. I DECIDE to do something, sometimes against what I would really like to do (I don't want to tend to the plants, but I don't want to see them die) and JUDGE things (I don't like seeing the plants die). I don't have to do any of that though (I can watch the plants die and live without a garden).This is more what I mean for it to be existential. I am not denying that we can do things by routine, but it is the fact that we know that we can fall into a routine, that it is quite iterative above and beyond simply routine.

Quoting schopenhauer1

I can stop working and not work, but then the anxiety of leaving people without saying a word, the anxiety of looking for another thing, of not getting money, etc. You see, I just decided that these things were important, though I could decide otherwise. Perhaps freedom from work is most important to me at all costs to the point I'd rather live under an underpass than work for the Man. You see, we have a large degree of deliberative freedom, and this causes the burden of knowing we can do things which we didn't necessarily "have" to do, but do "anyways" because we decide things continually to do or not do. This, whilst praised in the main, is I see a burden of the human. This is the error loop where nothing is justified.

Quoting schopenhauer1

The self-reflective is the evolutionary error (to the individual) even though it was a (emergent over time) solution (for the species).

Cool.

At some point, though, one finds themself.

The deliberative moment is prior to finding oneself. The choices are endless, because one doesn't know who one is.

But if you know who you are, the choices slowly dwindle down.

And there isn't a reason, as you note.

There's simply yourself, and the world, and what you need to do.

Quoting Moliere

And there isn't a reason, as you note.

There's simply yourself, and the world, and what you need to do.

Personality? Schopenhauer thought there was a character behind decisions perhaps. No freedom.

Reply to schopenhauer1 I don't think so. At least, the identification of self with activity, or at least a strict relationship between the two, is a strong part of existential philosophy as I understand it -- and it's not a personality that one is looking for in asking nor a personality that one gives in answering.

Think of the archetypes which Camus gives as examples of existential heroes. Many personalities could fill those archetypes.

And, for myself -- though I am inspired by Camus -- I don't even think the heroic stance towards the absurd is really the best. I prefer a softer approach.

What answers the absurd? I'd say that's pretty close to an existential identity of some kind, and this being existentialism, activity is what I'd put forward as central.

Deliberation occurs before activity, and one can always return to the existential question and deliberate again. (one can choose otherwise again, become someone else)

But we can also just answer the question with the simple declaration: Here I am! Even the fact of choice need not weigh us down. We can choose to refuse the weight of choice, if that fits us.

And what could the existential thinker say to such a person?

Reply to Vera Mont Try thinking. It might help.

Quoting I like sushi

It might help.

Help whom accomplish what?

Reply to Vera Mont You will never know if you do not try.

Quoting I like sushi

You will never know if you do not try.

That's one bumper-sticker too deepish for me.
For a minute, I was curious what your problem with me might be, but I got over it.