I think I understand. Is this it?
Most people speak and act as though they want to survive.
However, we know that some fraction of these people would actually kill themselves if suicide were made easy enough.
This means that when they say they’re doing things to survive they’re lying, perhaps even to themselves.
And in fact the actions they call “survival” are very slow forms of “suicide”. Any claims these people make of having a purpose in life are invalid.
Sort of, but pochacco is much closer! The short term perception of purpose, such as being wealthy or having lots of friends, is inversely defined when these accomplishments rely upon allowing or making suicide sufficiently difficult. They are, illusions, completely so. So, in that last portion where you stated, “…can survive only by making suicide sufficiently difficult…” (bolding mine), it’s not survival that is happening to individuals who float upon this stratified conglomeration, it is an illusion of thriving that forces them to unknowingly kill themselves and everyone within their purveiw. Every individual within the system that is ONLY maintained by making suicide more difficult, is equally responsible for the act of homicide of each other and suicide of themselves.
Another way to convey this idea is to think of a rat being zapped by an electrode at a certain part of the brain. That rat looks really productive and really happy while constantly sucking down sugar water until it drowns. And that rat really dies because, more than any reason, its intent is being circumvented. It is in this manner, that I state that beings deriving ANY ‘purpose’ from behavior that can ONLY be there because of suicidal tension are not intentional beings; or as I also say, they are not aware that they exist.
Theoretically, dropping suicidal tension to zero, will cause a chain reaction in the cognitive processing speed for survival to critical mass, not only giving every being the option to survive, but equally the ability to ressurrect all prior being that has passed (not been stabalized) and give them the same option; in fact, the latter option must be exersized in order to achieve the former option.
The hamsters ate this, so I am going to recreate it. I tried to ask if you were saying that eventual death means that actions we think of as for the purposes of survival are in fact contrary to this purpose. I think that you are.
I think I may be able to restate your idea more succintly.
“In the end everything comes down to poo!”. Wait a second before you dismiss this. I am only half jesting. Of all the food we eat, most is simply excreted as poo. The rest is turned into either energy or body mass. The body mass eventually turns into worm poo, and the energy is used to create food (mostly poo eventually) and other things which could be described as eventually societal poo. The universe itself (unless the steady state theroists are correct) will eventually be nothing more than the left over residue of existence. Existential poo if you will. Alternatively, it could all condence into an unimaginably small pellet which may or may not eventually fertalize a whole new universe. Which will, in tern form another pellet of this universal poo.
My point (and the part which is not in jest) is that you can formulate very elaborate philosophical systems which are self consistent and even logical from a certain point of view. But they can at the exact same time be completely full of shit.
The idea that suicide is any sort of motivation or choice for any but the tiniest of minorities is ludicrous. Any philosophical system based on this idea is, well, you get the idea.
olanv, I gotta go with pervert on this (if nothing else!). First of all, I disagree with you in the sense that
a) you overrate the universality of a desire for suicide that is not counterbalanced by a fear of suicide itself, not its attendant costs of pain and guilt.
b) you over-simplify the human capacity to feel multiple things simultaneously, and to be aware of many things simultaneously. Humans by and large are not rats.
c) most of us in life, even those who are quite self-reflective, nevertheless are not guided by some over-reaching intent. Life is mostly made of moments and small steps.
d) Once again, I raise the analogy of the purchase one can not afford. The fact that I can not (or am not willing to) afford a Mini does not change the fact that I may prefer a Corolla to a Dodge. One’s first choice might in fact be to die. But that doesn’t prevent them from having real intentions, goals, preferences, realities while they continue to live.
Second, I believe you have a typical kind of arrogance that young, very bright people dealing with “deep thoughts” fairly early on tend to have - a belief in their own self-awareness and the lack of it in others. Certainly there are people in the world who choose not to spend time in self-examination. While I do indulge in self-reflection, I’ve also come to realize that more often than not, it is on a par with masturbation rather than the gaining of wisdom. And it is far more common than I think you currently believe, just as there are far more people around you who are as bright as you are than you probably realize. The thing is, I don’t see much evidence that people who engage in frequent self-examination are happier, wiser, better, or better off than those who don’t. Socrates did not receive The Truth from on high, and the unexamined life can be worth living.
Third, even if I did agree with your theory, which I do not, I don’t think it’s worth much. It strikes me as a great deal of sound and fury, signifying precious little. Can you give me any example of what value this ‘insight’ has?
You underestimate the domino effect of the suicidal tension line, and how much purpose people derive from it’s zero sum effects. When people have to actually work to survive, which is exactly what zero suicidal tension forces, they cannot proxy their labor out through lines of social encryption, and maintain their unfalsified platitudes in order to survive. They have to actually do something.
I’m not seeing how this addresses what I am saying. If your intent is being circumvented; the multiple feelings and observations weren’t enough, human or rat.
These kinds of platitudes will not allow survival to occur with a suicidal tension of zero. In order for people to survive in an environment that places pressure on people to do something that actually constitutes survival, they will have to change all of this. This is exactly the kind of stuff that is observed in entities who ‘profit’ from suicidal tension.
I’m going to spend more time processing this analogy before I reply.
“Arrogance, bright, egocentrism, wiser, better”, these linguistic tokens are all ungrounded, and it’s suicidal tension that lets you get away with this and still believe that you are doing something that corresponds with any of the ideas running through your brain. It’s also suicidal tension that allows you to be championed for doing this, the very people you’re killing will come to your aid, because they are using the same exploits, the ambiguity, that you’re padded with. You can call me anything you want, but while in suicidal tension, if I accept any of it, I’m murdering you and killing myself. People who are in the suicidal tension line don’t see it – “I’m being nice”, “I’m being mean”, “I love and am loved”, “I’m a terrible person”, “they are terrible people.”, “I work hard”, “I deserve this.”, “I survive”. The only reason any of this is true, is because you’re not getting off your duff and changing it. A person is only stupid because you’re not making them smart (which makes you stupid)and you’re only smart because you’re not making yourself stupid (which makes you stupid). All options of the gossip continuum instantly reflect your own stupidity, no matter which one you choose. And while in the suicidal tension line, instead of people taking responsibility for the truth of their words (to go out and falsify them, or realize that if they can’t then they are observing evidence of their own impotence), they sit back and let the suicidal tension line dump the energy into them – they languish in the gossip instead of getting up and doing something to prove it wrong. The happiness result comes when people believe that they see something coming from nothing at all (which results when they don’t comprehend the mechanism), in this example of smart vs. stupid; it was stupid to utter the linguistic token no matter which one was chosen (which is how all gossip and platitude works), and yet you’re still alive. The subconscious mind in parrotive cognitions forces them to be excited, laughing, happy, etc… Happy because they are refuting themselves, but still here. In doing this however, the self refutation does stick, the person is not aware that they exist, the laughter, anger, excitement etc… is the tension release that comes from parrotive cognitions when pressure to be aware that they exist is occuring.
Value? Options. I want the option to find enjoyment in life without coming after all of you like a ravenous wolf in sheeps clothing. If I dive fully into the suicidal tension line with what I know, I won’t be aware of myself at all anymore, but you’ll all be really screwed. What option do you want? I want the option to survive. It’d be a treat to not have to work for a while without knowing that I’m murdering people and killing myself… If I didn’t want to survive, embracing the society that drones in the suicidal tension line would be very appealing. If I stopped working I could be so wealthy, I could have all kinds of friends too! Bah…
I want to survive, after that, I’ll accept a vacation.
OK, I’m going to say the following one more time, and then probably retire from this thread, because I’m rather tired of helping you masturbate.
Most people, honestly, truly, in real real land, don’t actually want to kill themselves over any long period of time. The cost of suicide in pain and guilt prevents impulse suicides and people who are despairing over comparatively short periods of time from doing so. The person who has truly reached considered, reality-based despair with no realistic basis for hope either finds a way to kill himself or stays alive out of duty to others.
1a) This staying alive out of duty is not un-self-aware. The person who stays alive because he must meet a responsibility is fully capable of making informed choices, and his actions toward surviving will be that - towards surviving.
1b) The purpose such a person feels, and the actions taken toward achieving that purpose often can alleviate the despair and thus the desire for suicide.
If in fact a person goes through life actually wanting to die themselves, that does not make their actions homicidal. You have not in any way established that connection (and at this point don’t bother).
Oddly enough, and difficult at your age though it may be to accept, over-arching Purpose does not guide the majority of human actions, and this is not because people really want to kill themselves and are prevented from doing so. You have an extremely romanticized view of life (and suicide, for that matter). People who have to truly work to survive (and there are many, particularly in under-developed nations) are, generally speaking, far too busy working to survive and snatching little moments of pleasure, even delight, to have much in the way of Grand Intent.
Linguistic tokens (as you put it) or ideas/words/concepts (as I put it) are not reality. But at the same time, I assure you, dear heart, that I have a far better idea of what is running around my head than you do, despite your mighty Self Awareness. Get it through your head that you are not the only person who actually has an idea of his or her own motivations, beliefs, and feelings - many people do and yet still lead lives that are filled with the trivial and the mundane. I know it’s hard, but until you learn that fundamental lesson in life, you will alienate everyone except other high-brow-wannabe college students with your amusingly mistaken arrogance.
Meaning, if you put up a big sign reading “Push this button and you will die”, and rig up a button that drops a 16 ton weight on the person who pushes the button, will people who otherwise might not have committed suicide that day push the button?
Yes, but only the stupid ones.
I think you guys are missing something that olanv is saying. I don’t think he is saying that many people want to commit suicide. I think he is saying that every action taken to for survival is really an action which commits suicide. That is people don’t want to die, but what they want is irrelevent. I think because we will all die anyway. It is just like my post about poo. Whatever notion you have about producing happiness, joy, or any other value in life, you are really just creating poo. olanv is saying that whatever goal you think you are workin towards you are really just working towards death.
He is then posutlating that if suicide were easier to commit, more people would choose it. Especially if they realized that death is the ultimate fate anyway. <I think>. Frankly everything else is so nonsensical that I’m not sure he has a good link. But you are missing something fundamental when you think of ‘suicide tension’ as people wanting to commit suicide. I think he means something altogether different.
I cannot believe I am understanding anythin in these posts. I really am disturbed.
pervert, I believe you are mistaken, based on the email olanv sent to me when I tried to help him make his point clearer:
ALthough this is still a rather jargon-filled few paragraphs, I think it confirms that ‘suicide tension’ refers to those things that prevent people from committing suicide other than a lack of desire for death. olanv seems to think of this as comprising physical things such as lack of convenient means. I think of it as comprising less tangible things - fear of one’s own pain, and fear of leaving behind destructive grief or other obligations not met.
Further, I find it unlikely that a person really and whole-heartedly determined on suicide would find lack of means a problem - there’s always the can of Drano or equivalent under the sink. Of course, the fear of pain is a problem there, but if you’re in sufficient life pain, the idea of a short-lived physical pain would eventually become less threatening.
BUt for whatever reason, olanv seems to view the desire for suicide as highly wide spread, and yet pretty readily thwarted by fairly insignificant problems (although, granted, being strapped to a bed is less than a significant block. But he also talks about systems or societies with high rates of suicidal tension, and I don’t think being strapped to a bed as a means to preventing suicide is all that wide-spread). But he then seems to view anyone who would like to commit suicide but doesn’t do so because of these problems as ‘in reality’ sublimating (but not consciously) all goals to that of achieving suicide (and somehow along the way murdering everyone else - haven’t figured that part out at all). He also seems to feel that because these people would commit suicide if only they had a gun rather than their own saliva with which to do it, they are incapable of self-awareness, or of any truly, fully conscious, purposeful activity that has as its goal anything but their own suicide or the murder of others. They may think they’re doing things for other reasons, but they’re really doing it to further death in themselves or others.
Or at least that’s how I’m reading it. How he’s coming to these conclusions continues to elude me.
I certainly hope so. But I’m not so sure. I think the email you included is simply a thought experiment to demonstrate that “suicide tension” can be measured without reference to the desires of the people involved. Note the last paragraph.
I agree with the rest of your post. I am more than willing to admit that I am not at all sure I understand even 3 or four sentences of any of olanv’s posts.
ONLY actions taken where purpose is derived from something that can ONLY be there when there is suicidal tension.
ONLY if the actions can ONLY result because of of something that can ONLY be there as a result of suicidal tension. All other actions do not work towards “death”. The reason I put death in quotes, and also in respone to your poo example, is that the whole point of this theory as opposed to the poo one, is that it self referentially addresses interpretation itself in the broadest possible sense. It refers to its own content, it’s a theory with a strange loop that falsifies itself at every turn… it self referentially accesses you, your interpretation and how any of this corresponds not only with the theory but with interaction as a result of the theory to anything else out there.
It’s not just about people committing suicide, given easier means, it’s about everyone having to do something else other than what intentionally commits suicide and homicide. Refer to the example about concentration camps; they all have to find something ELSE to DO, because with zero suicidal tension, concentration camps are impossible entities. These people would be forced to do something that is consistent with ALL of their linguistic tokens and ideas about why they believe they are doing something.
Fine.
Define the term suicidal tension. Describe a single normal action or activity which can ONLY exist because of it.
Suicidal tension: The ommission of an inanimate object that would cause a person to commit suicide where it introduced to the environment.
-Reproduction, Raising children as human slaves (simulating their consent, and literally raising them on suicidal tension, similar to the manner in which children are said to be babysat/raised by television. Forcing them to have parrotive cognitions.)
-Social Stratification
-Sexual selection is heavily skewed by suicidal tension.
-Basically any form of human slavery that is superfluous.
I want to make very clear, that in the analogy of a sweat shop, concentration camp, prison … entities that are IMPOSSIBLE with zero suicidal tension, to the degree that they are in the microcosm, they reflect the macrocosm. People in the US for example, are recipeints of many of the ‘rewards’ of suicidal tension per the global distribution. They have the easiest access to methods of little tension, and yet don’t succumb to it… and in stating this, the tension line in the US is still VERY high. But NOT as high in third world counties!!! A persons ability to float around in the US with linguistic tokens like “sophomoric mental masturbation”, and then move along with behaviors that continue to be resultant ONLY from suicidal tension (much like the officers in concentration camps), is because they aren’t accountable to the ripple effect of what decreased suicidal tension actually does to their “purpose”. They would demonstrably have to do something ELSE, other than self refuting behavior (that doesn’t force them to commit suicide at that instant! – which is recursively self refuting!! or rather, self recursively refuting!! This is where I state that beings in this tension line are not aware of their existence, as such awareness is defined by self recursion).
Let me put it even more succincly, a persons ability to deny this theory is resultant from suicidal tension. If the tension is dropped, they will either commit suicide, or they will have to find something else to do other than represent behavior that is demonstrably suicidal… per the concentration camp analogy, they’ll have to find something else to do other than run a concentration camp; if their consent for LIFE is BOUND by running a concentration camp (suicidal / homicidal behavior, then they will have to commit suicide as a result of not consenting to life – which, when totalled together, tautologically solves for all possible consent variables. I agree with AvhHines, in the sense that some people want to commit suicide and/or homicide, and don’t consent to life here unless they can – but these people can have their consent solved for, without destroying anyone who is attempting to survive.
Please…how do I purge my User CP of this thread? It’s like a disease, a scourge, a plague; something thoroughly unwholesome and terrifying. I beg you…make…it…stop…
The perfect theory! Anyone who disagrees with it is only demonstrating its power. To you.
The problem is, it is then in essence a religion. There is no argument that can sway your belief in your theory’s correctness, because any argument simply demonstrates its truth to you further.
So what is there to debate?
Wait til you get the next email and click on “Unsubscribe from this thread.”
I don’t think the problem is a lack of “three dollar words”. The problem is a lack of “one gross for a nickel words”. In other words, you’re trying too hard.
So we have social stratification because we have suicidal tension.
We have suicidal tension because there is something missing from society, and if it wasn’t missing, people would commit suicide.
What is that thing that is missing, and how do we make sure people don’t introduce it into the environment?
Unlike a supernatural theory of purpose, this is a naturalistic theory of purpose. All of the predictions stated by it can be tested, all of the interpretations made by it are self referentially testing themselves when the theory is being tested. It’s testing itself for religion (unfalsified purposes) by binding all the variables to determine which ones are self refuting, and it’s predicting that religion itself is ONLY sustainable in when suicidal tension is generally high everywhere and stratified globally, so that some areas have much higher tension than others; that it is the work of these slaves in high tension areas, that allows people in environments where the suicidal tension is lower to not access the means that the other population will, were it made available to them. It’s stating that suicidal tension creates a zero sum effect in society, and that zero sum effect can be eradicated in society by destroying suicidal tension.
It’s making a VERY positive and falsifiable claim.
If the results don’t correspond with the theory, the theory and it’s interpretations are false. This theory is being proposed as a unified theory of naturalistic meta-ethics, in the sense that if it is false in one instance, it is false in all instances. In another self referential manner, it’s designed to kill itself if it’s false. It’s not the same as religion, because the theory is designed to test all of its own variables by making falsifiable meta-predictions about religion itself.