/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19895697]

Is there a way to refute materialism without metaphysics? I'm reading the pessimists and I'm not being able to cope with existence. It's all genes manifesting into the ambient you were born into. I don't have the right to live since I'm weak - and all the weak should perish. Just want to know if there's a way around destiny without resorting to God, for I'm unable to believe in such things. I'll try mushrooms next week hoping that I change these mental patterns and end up having a fate other than killing myself. It's all so tiresome.

[Anonymous No.19895713]

>>19895697
>I'm weak
Be strong then. Change is possible, and in the modern world you can thrive even without good phisical genes.

[Anonymous No.19895745]

>>19895697
>Is there a way to refute materialism without metaphysics?
No
>I'm reading the pessimists and I'm not being able to cope with existence. It's all genes manifesting into the ambient you were born into.
Yes
>I don't have the right to live since I'm weak - and all the weak should perish.
Yes
>Just want to know if there's a way around destiny
No

[Anonymous No.19895748]

>>19895697
I'll give you this: whenever you find something that confirms an hypothesis, don't be so hasty as to think that said hypothesis is the truth. Wait until you find all the things that confirm it. Why am I saying that? Because neuroscientists still have no model of consciousness. Any attempt so far to explain consciousness is more akin to explaining it away.

[Anonymous No.19895809]

>>19895713
all we are is a collection of genes

[Anonymous No.19895816]

>>19895713
Thrive like in the nitezschean sense of will to power? So I should chase money to do whatever I want with it?

[Anonymous No.19895853]

>>19895697
God is a tacky Germanic word that has been ineptly saddled with some of the most exalted concepts in the history of thought. Whatever God it is you cannot believe in is probably some rural semiliterate instantiation that no thinking person could possibly embrace. But if you open a book, spinozas ethics for example, or Hegels phenomenology, you might find a God it is impossible for you not to believe in

[Anonymous No.19895879]

>>19895697
>Is there a way to refute materialism without metaphysics?
Retarded question, op. Materialism is a metaphysical position, so no. It is not possible. Unless you are meaning the type of materialism synonymous with consumerism, in which case your question is still retarded.

[Anonymous No.19895967]

[Anonymous No.19895997]

>>19895697
Your choice is A. faith based purpose or B. Material. You could argue social concepts might be a third option.

Any rate, choose Jesus, money, or a lover, or some combo and get on with it.

[Anonymous No.19896022]

>>19895809
Thats reductive.

[Anonymous No.19896126]

Dear OP, don't fall victim to reductionistic thinking, your continuous consumption of that kind of text leads you to model your worldview accordingly. Change might be hard, but it is simple too; engage in other kind of texts and widen your horizons and you'll start to see past the contrivances. Consider engaging more with the physical as well, living among abstractions is tiring and we often find scapegoats for our negative feelings.

[Anonymous No.19896134]

i don't see why the supposed truth of materialism makes life better or worse, it's just is.

[Anonymous No.19896159]

>>19895816
That is beyond the point, the point is that killing youself because you feel "weak" is stupid because weakness is something you can fix.
Now, if you are looking for meaning to life, that's an harder question, something that we've been asking youself for thousands of years.
Also what thriving means totally depends on you.

[Anonymous No.19896163]

>>19895809
Reddit tier take

[Anonymous No.19896199]

>>19896022
its truth

[Anonymous No.19896259]

>>19896163
ok. now what?

[Anonymous No.19896785]

when life, society, ppl, reject everything you are and everything that you do, its hard to believe there's a point to continue this suffering. art, music, photography, everything I loved to create, got rejected with advice to kms, same for looks, ppl just tell me to kms when I post my photo, well, I might be some very strange creature then, because majority can't be wrong.

[Anonymous No.19896826]

>>19895809
Do you have a soul? Trick question.

[Anonymous No.19896888]

>>19895697
I guess works of Menskij that was partially based on Many worlds interpretation by Everett?

[Anonymous No.19896961]

>>19895809
Welcome to materialism, once you get over the initial shock you'll find its' really quite liberating. Now since you can see yourself as the animal you are, go out and make your animal self happy. Run around, be in the sun, enjoy a hobby.

[Anonymous No.19897002]

>>19896199
There's some truth to it, but is neither true in its entirety than the whole truth. That would be much trickier.

[Anonymous No.19897015]

>>19895697
>I'm weak therefore I should perish
No, OP. That's just the lies of liberals. The weak are meant to be weak and provide for the stronger and there's nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can be strong. The only reason you have a problem is that you refuse to accept that you're weak and have delusions of grandeur.

[Anonymous No.19897051]

>>19897015
>just be a slave, bro

[Anonymous No.19897136]

>>19897051
Everyone else is. What makes you so superior?

[Anonymous No.19897240]

>>19895697
>Is there a way to refute materialism without metaphysics? I'm reading the pessimists
No you aren't. Schopenhauer would laugh at anyone retarded enough to believe materialism. After Sch resume with Plato

[Anonymous No.19897264]

>>19897015
The stronger (dumber) are supposed to provide for the weaker (smarter), that's the just the way it is.

[Anonymous No.19897279]

>>19895697
>all the weak should perish
There can be no strength without weakness. Remove all weakness, and it appears again in strength.

[Anonymous No.19897359]

>>19896961
this listen to ug krishnamuty

[Anonymous No.19897369]

If the argument is that rationally, logically matter is all that exists, there’s no rational or logical way to prove that so to assert it is irrational and illogical. If materialism is right, you can never actually know it.

[Anonymous No.19897382]

>>19895713
ok, then fucking do it. KILL YOURSELF, PUSSY. If this "truth" you think you've found in materialism has more value then anything else, FUCKING DO IT. God fucking damnit I hate you nihilist fucks. Every moment you spend doing anything but killing yourself is proof you don't actually believe the dense horseshit you weigh down collective thought with.
I REPEAT, IF YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS,
KILL
YOUR
SELF.
don't want to do it? think that your conclusion maybe might have been drawn from an egotistical perspective that itself denies your claims?
THEN STOP FUCKING SPEWING IT.
If not, if you still don't have enough integrity to introspect and find the real reasons you're thinking this way,
KILL.
YOUR.
SELF.
The world would be better off without you.

[Anonymous No.19897388]

>>19897240
I mean, I've read persuasion and rhetoric and now I'm reading conspiracy against the human race. Aren't they pessimists?

[Anonymous No.19897393]

>>19897382
>>19895697

meant to tag OP, don't kill yourself random guy.

[Anonymous No.19897406]

>>19897240
What this anon said.
>"Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself."
>Arthur Schopenhauer

OP, forget about knowing what is "objectively true", forget about concepts like "materialism" and "metaphysics".
Reverse the direction of your attention, and look for what's really here.

[Anonymous No.19897415]

>>19897382
Hey, pal, I'd kill myself right away if I had the courage to do it. Something prevents me from doing it: be it biological preservation, or the endless propaganda that breeds the doubt of an afterlife. I wish I could, but I'm too weak for that.

[Anonymous No.19897416]

>>19896961
my animal self will only be happy when it has sex which is impossible

[Anonymous No.19897421]

>>19897388
The "father" of pessimism is the metaphysician Arthur Schopenhauer. He was deeply interested in Platonism, Hinduism, and even Christian mysticism. One of his many philosophical accomplishments is that he revives Plato's theory of forms and reconciles it with Kantianism. Leave those second rate pessimists behind and start with the source.

[Anonymous No.19897454]

>>19897415
kill yourself isn't hard! Doesn't require that much effort! go do it! you know how! jump off of something~! DO IT! DO IT! DOI IT ! DOI IT!
EVERYONE BUT YOUR DUMBASS KNOWS YOU DONT BELIEVE THIS.
SHUT
THE
FUCK
UP

[Anonymous No.19897457]

>>19895713
>It's all genes manifesting into the ambient you were born into.
>I don't have the right to live since I'm weak - and all the weak should perish.
Now that's is a genuinely extraordinary feat of mental gymnastics. Please do explain the gap of reasoning between those two propositions before you decide to take your life XD.

[Anonymous No.19897476]

>>19897457
I honestly see no contradiction. The weak has bad genes (or bad luck) and should perish without complaining by those who are stronger.

[Anonymous No.19897499]

>>19897476
There is no "should" here. If the weak are weak enough, they will perish on their own. But here you are quite alive.

[Anonymous No.19897515]

>>19896199
No, it's just letters on a screen, not truth.
Those letters on a screen are in turn just pixels, not letters.
Those pixels are in turn just light, not pixels.
That light in turn is just photons, not light.
Those photons are in turn just electric fields travelling through space, not photons.
So no, it's not truth, it's electric fields travelling through space.

God damn reductionism is so fucking stupid, and sophomoric materialism is always couched in the most chromosome-enriched high-school tier 17th century newtonian physics imaginable.

[Anonymous No.19897546]

>>19897515
you have legit autism

[Anonymous No.19897555]

>>19897546
He is right. If you don't understand these basic concepts, maybe your desire for suicide is just nature running its course.

[Anonymous No.19897557]

>>19897476
I think your definition of weakness and strength are too narrow. The solitary bear might have great strength, but a pack of wolves can bring it down. That is to say, if a group of ‘weaklings’ team up to destroy a great man, are they not in reality the ones who partake in strength?

[Anonymous No.19897559]

>>19897546
There is no such thing as autism.
Autism is just a particular neurochemistry and neurostructure, which in turn is comprised of neurotransmitters and neurotissues, which are in turn comprised of atoms, which are in turn comprised of protons, electrons and neutrons, which are in turn comprised by quarks and leptons.

So yeah, what you've said is literally meaningless, there is no such thing as autism, those are actually quarks and leptons.

[Anonymous No.19897570]

>>19895697
>reading pessimists
lmao you fucked up op

>>19895697
Get good and read Plato. Metaphysics cannot be ignored unless you are a modern charlatan (like Zappfe et al).

[Anonymous No.19897571]

>>19895697
Read;
Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
Birth of Tragedy
Schopenhauer as Teacher
Ultimely Meditations ; On the Use and Abuse of History for Life
Zarathustra
>Nietzsche

Moses the Egyptian
Price of Monotheism
The Transformations of the Inner Self
>Jan Assmann

Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living
>Maturana & Varella

The Illiad
>Homer

Trust & Power
>Luhman

A System's View of Man
>Ludwig Von Bertanlaffy

Ancient Religion
Mystery of Eleusis
Zeus & Hera
Hermes Psychopompos
>Karl Kerenyi

Theophania
>Walter Otto

Scipio Trilogy
>Santiago Posteguillo

[Anonymous No.19897578]

>>19897559
>quarks
The first time I heard about quarks I thought the person was making a joke. What kind of terminology is this? What did physicists mean by this

[Anonymous No.19897585]

>>19895697
>Trying to refute materialism but only within materialism itself
Ngmi
What do you think metaphysics are?

[Anonymous No.19897586]

>>19897406
This is literal btw, not metaphorical or some shit.
Spend less time reading and more time looking for whatever you can find or not find where you are. Not around you in the external world (including your body), not mental or psychological aspects of you, but where you seem to be in your own direct subjective experience.

[Anonymous No.19897596]

>>19897578
They're having a laugh at reductionists. "Quark quark quark".

[Anonymous No.19897600]

>>19897571
Forgot about

Schwaller de Lubicz

[Anonymous No.19897601]

>>19897596
Kek

[Anonymous No.19897624]

>>19895697
>Is there a way to refute materialism without metaphysics?
https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/zombie-mary-versus-god-and-jesus-against-lawrence-bonjours-against-materialism/
"For me, ‘material’ is simply a pole on a continuum, that which provides the most data. It’s whatever scientists seem to be able to endlessly mine for information, and to thus endlessly reconfigure into boggling demonstrations of power. Insofar as this is what scientists indeed do, mine and enable, I’m only interested in materialism in terms falling out of Blind Brain Theory, which is to say, in terms of dimensionality. Science is the premier data-mining institution on the planet. The question of what ‘matter’ might be apart from all the differences it makes does not strike me as a promising one. Nor does the question of whether matter monopolizes existence. BBT lets me sidestep these questions, since it sees the interminable controversies spinning out of the material and the ideal as a paradigmatic example of a heuristic run amok, and so elects to talk of high and low dimensionality instead."

[Anonymous No.19897629]

>>19897476
You are being willfully a degenerate retard. If you really believe that everything is explained through genetics, whatever such a notion even means to you, then indeed you must believe that genetics can explain every single thing, including the negation of your argument. How do you explain movement and change without considering the inevitable possibility and concurrent actuality of transformation? You don't, that's the answer, especially by saying muh genes. I'm sure you have misread the authors you made reference to.
>I'll try mushrooms next week hoping that I change these mental patterns and end up having a fate other than killing myself.
inb4 psychosis. I'm sure meditation and psychiatry would help you much more than acid no matter how pozzed the profession may be in your area. Then take the psychedelics afterwards so you don't immediately become demonically possessed.

[Anonymous No.19897656]

>>19897629
Genetics explain human behaviour, not the nature of existence.

[Anonymous No.19897663]

>>19897515
>Those letters on a screen are in turn just pixels, not letters.
Yes. Just pixels, and miscued heuristics.

https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2017/10/18/reading-from-bacteria-to-bach-and-back-iii-beyond-stances/
"Medial neglect assures the astronomical dimensionality of the here is flattened into near oblivion, stranding cognition with a powerful intuition of a representational there. Thanks to our ancestors, who discovered myriad ways to manipulate information to cue visual cognition out of school, to drape optical illusions across their cave walls, or to press them into lumps of clay, we’ve become so accustomed to imagery as to entirely forget the miraculousness of seeing absent things in things present. Those cues are more or less isomorphic to the actual systems comprising the ancestral problem ecologies visual cognition originally evolved to manage. This is why they work. They recapitulate certain real patterns of information in certain ways—as does your, retina, your optic nerve, and every stage of visual cognition culminating in visual experience. The only thing ‘special’ about the recapitulations belonging to your television screen is their availability, not simply to visual cognition, but to our attempts to cognize/troubleshoot such instances of visual cognition. The recapitulations on the screen, unlike, say, the recapitulations captured by our retinas, are the one thing we can readily troubleshoot should they begin miscuing visual cognition. Neglect ensures the intuition of sufficiency, the conviction that the screen is the basis, as opposed to simply another component in a superordinate whole. So, we fetishize it, attribute efficacies belonging to the system to what is in fact just another component. All its enabling entanglements vanish into the apparent miracle of unmediated semantic relationships to whatever else happens to be available. Look! we cry. Representation…"

[Anonymous No.19897673]

>>19897559
Nope, autism exists, you're living proof.

[Anonymous No.19897719]

>>19897476
>The weak
>should perish
"And often have they been good servants and worthy of their hire. For thus saith virtue: “If thou must be a servant, seek him unto whom thy service is most useful!
The spirit and virtue of thy master shall advance by thou being his servant: thus wilt thou thyself advance with his spirit and virtue!”
And verily, ye famous wise ones, ye servants of the people! Ye yourselves have advanced with the people’s spirit and virtue—and the people by you! To your honour do I say it!"

"And where there is sacrifice and service and love-glances, there also is the will to be master. By by-ways doth the weaker then slink into the fortress, and into the heart of the mightier one—and there stealeth power."

[Anonymous No.19897731]

>>19895697
>Is there a way to refute materialism without metaphysics
Yes, quantum mechanics is not a materialist theory

[Anonymous No.19897753]

>>19897731
https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/notes-toward-a-cognitive-biology-of-theoretical-physics/
"On the view sketched here, the fundamental divide between general relativity and quantum mechanics lies in the latter’s cognitive biological relevance. This suggests that quantum mechanics, if not the more fundamental theory, functions in a problem-ecology where general relativity simply has no application. Most physicists see quantum mechanics as more fundamental but their arguments tend to be formal and ontological as opposed to ecological. As we saw above, the independence heuristic, the presumption of meta-irrelevance, is the default, core to all our cognitive orientations—and this is as true of physicists as it is of anyone. Physicists understand the debate, in other words, with a tendency to overlook the relevance of their cognitive biology, and so presume the gap between general relativity and quantum mechanics is merely mathematical or conceptual. The failure of biological irrelevance, however, exposes the physical dimensions of the problem, how the issue lies in the constitution of human cognition.
Theoretical physics has always understood that humans are physical systems, entropic conduits, like all things living. But appreciating the fact of cognitive biology is one thing and appreciating the activity of cognitive biology is quite another. When we sweep away all the second-order clutter, quantum mechanics is something us organisms *do*, a behavioural product of the very nature quantum mechanics reveals. Our cognitive nature, the ancestral defaults geared to optimize ancestral circumstances, systematically confounds our attempts to cognize nature. Quantum mechanics shows we are natural in such a way as to stymy our attempts to understand nature, short theoretical gerrymandering via robust experimental feedback.
This raises the spectre that human cognition is constitutionally incapable of unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics. <...> The failure of cognitive biological relevance in quantum mechanics underscores what might be called the problem of diminishing applicability, how the further our constitution is pushed from our ancestral, ecological sweet spots, the systems we evolved to take for granted, the less we can presume meta-irrelevance, the more we should expect our cognitive biological inheritance to require remediation, lest it crash."

[Anonymous No.19897797]

>>19897656
And genetics contain all the variation within human behaviour, yes? Is perception human behaviour? Is consciousness human behaviour? Both pessimism and optimism are contained within consciousness. Perhaps you would like to argue that your specific set of genetic properties have predetermined a life of misery for you. Even that is a nonsensical argument because you have no way of introspecting your genetic material. I'm sure CBT would fix you.

[Anonymous No.19897831]

>>19895697
The correlation of phenomena weaves a cosmic mesh, unknown to our ordinary condition. For those of us who have reached the luminous transcendental state, reality is completely alien to our misunderstandings. Reincarnation is a fundamental pillar of our human sphere. Do you really think that we are just genes that appeared from a void? The void was called your parents having sex at the precise moment for your primordial organic being to arrive first among billions to our sacred ovum. This extremely unlikely causality caused you to be the embodied mind that you are today. Don't forget that. Outside the shackles imposed by society, by memory, by genes, there are no weaks, no strongs. Only ONE there is. You can feel this without metaphysics just be open to observation.

[Anonymous No.19897929]

>>19897831
>Only ONE there is.
"Everything has obviously gone wrong for us in order for Plato to begin with One rather than Zero. To take One as originary is to presuppose everything; such as unity, individuation, achieved form, and dogmatic plenitude. <...> The differentiated one is the Father, and his adorers understand nothing of religion. Even in writing the nothing, as Aquinas does, they eclipse it with absolute ego (Him). Nor is it the case that primary immanence is merely crushed with arbitrariness beneath a partially inadequate metaphorics, since—far from being neutral between the sexes—it is precisely because indifferentiation (= 0) is sexually unsegmented that it is even more feminine than the mother. The femininity of zero is uncompromised by its indifference, due to the unilateral character of individualizing deviation. Whilst zero is certainly alien to the Father, there is no differentiation from zero. Indeed, zero is so utterly vulvo-uterine that patriarchy is synonymous with irreligion (faith).
Between barter systems and money systems there is a difference strictly analogous to that between Roman arithmetics and the place-value system from India, transmitted by the Arabs to the West. Like zero, money is a redundant operator; adding nothing in order to make things hum. When Marx associates capital with death he is only drawing the final consequence from this correspondence. Surplus value comes out of labour-power, but surplus production comes out of nothing. This is why capital production is the consummating phase of nihilism, the liquidation of theological irreligion, the twilight of the idols. Modernity is virtual thanocracy guided insidiously by zero; the epoch of the death of God. There is no God but (only) zero—indifferentiation without unity—and nihil is true religion. "

[Anonymous No.19898722]

Is there a way around causality?

[Anonymous No.19899796]

>>19897416
Then go get some sex.

[Anonymous No.19900340]

>>19897240
Plato is kind of required for Schop but I guess if you know a little bit about Plato's ideas you are good to go.

[Anonymous No.19901896]

>>19897559
When you say that you also say no schizophrenics exist which, c'mon, is stupid thing to say.

[Anonymous No.19901927]

>>19896134
Responsibility is a pill difficult to swallow.

[Anonymous No.19902172]

>doesn't believe in God
>still believes in concepts like "the right to live" and "the weak should perish"
You should kill yourself

[Anonymous No.19902291]

>>19897416
escortmaxx litcel

[Anonymous No.19902295]

>>19902172
This.
>Believing in British East India Corp propaganda
Sad!

[Anonymous No.19902352]

>>19895713
This

[Anonymous No.19902946]

>>19895697
Everything you own (material) will become someone elses when you die. No matter how much shit you have you dont get to keep any of it. Its a meaningless struggle with an absurd end.
Imagine a gopher collecting pebbles like some kind of crackhead, when he eventually dies he isnt going to have that pile of pebbles anymore and eventually theyll disperse. Its illogical to a point, its reasonable and completely acceptable to have enough material to live and prosper, but beyond a certain point it is wasted effort, gluttony for the sake of gluttony. Why would you waste your timd gathering pebbles anymore if youve got enough to last you a lifetime? Why wouldnt you instead spend that time on actually enjoying the pebbles you have?
Its like asking a lottery winner why they would subject themselves to a stressful wage job when theyre set for life and could just coast from here on out and actually be happy?

Does that make sense?

[Anonymous No.19903310]

>>19902946
That's why people have children, so they can pass their pebbles on.

[Anonymous No.19904793]

>>19897731
I know /lit/ doesn't actually read but goddamn you should start.

[Anonymous No.19904811]

>>19903310
And are children bot something of the spiritual in and of themselves? Collecting pebbles to pass on for the security of your future generations is good and well, but collecting pebbles for no reason other than to have the most pebbles is where the line is drawn. Its the motivation, the purpose. It is for a good cause, or is it just because? Thats where the hair splits.

[Anonymous No.19904833]

>>19895697
>Is there a way to refute materialism without metaphysics?
It's called Phenomenology, literally one of the first step is a requirement to learn to suspend our ontological biases. However, it does end up recuperating a lot of what is generally considered metaphysics, after it has been eidetically founded.
God is not a requirement, as His transcendence is too radical. Pheno may help you accept God, however, as the teleology of the World somewhat requires Him.

[Anonymous No.19904908]

>>19895697
No

[Anonymous No.19905086]

>>19895697
Materialism is itself a metaphysical position so it's not absolute in its exactitude which means it hasn't asserted anything positively with total certainty.

[Anonymous No.19905420]

>>19895697
if you can't conceive of metaphysics you are a philo-zombie.
you aren't even capable of anything more than seeing and contextualising these letters and words.

[Anonymous No.19905422]

wow, lot of mindless materialists on /lit/ these days.
Portal, spring to my aid
>>>/x/

[Anonymous No.19905426]

>>19895997
or art. you forgot art.

[Anonymous No.19905430]

>>19895697
Just let your thoughts pass through you bro. You don't have to refute materialism if you can't think.
The only reason you think that you can't refute materialism is because you're conceptualizing something known as "materialism" with your thoughts. If you ignore your thoughts about materialism and just focus on your present-moment experience, it wouldn't matter whether or not materialism is real. Since you can only perceive materialism through the mechanism of thought, if you let your thoughts pass through you, you refute materialism for yourself since you are no longer attached to your thoughts about materialism.
Meditation helps with this a bit, but ideally you would do this at all times.

[Anonymous No.19906205]

>>19897929

explain please

[Anonymous No.19906210]

>>19895697
Refuting materialism does not refute the existence of genes and the facts of determinism in our world. It only contextualizes it.

[Anonymous No.19906213]

>>19895697
Genetic determinism is pseud garbage

[Anonymous No.19906221]

what an intellectual sane discussion in 4chan! may I post some wojaks to balance things out?

[Anonymous No.19906230]

>>19897929
Which book of his is this from? Fanged Noumena?

[Anonymous No.19906370]

>>19906230
The Thirst for Annihilation

[Anonymous No.19907854]

>>19895697
no, because materialism is a metaphysical proposition.