Purely Rational Conversation

know1nozme, Please don't bring in words like this, solipsism. It only tries to put restrictions on what we are discussing. Rationality includes listening. How can one listen when one is restricted by the words used to describe a discussion. Isms and belief systems don't mean anything here. This is simply a discussion, not to be labeled as any belief. Theory is unproven, and thus not valid information.

I would like to go into the connection between desire, suffering, and unhappiness. Unhappiness is suffering. They are equivalent. Unhappiness then is caused by the unfulfillment of desire, or the clinging to desire as you may put it. I use desire to describe this clinging. That is where I believe our definitions differ. Lets say you have a crappy job, for example. You are unhappy because you desire a better job. You do not have the better job yet, therefore you cannot be happy with the current situation. Rather than desire the better job, which would lead to unhappiness, lets look at the possible actions. You can try for the better job or not try for the better job. I do not think desire is necessary for action, once again. You can always weigh your options, determine what is the better route to take. This does not require desire, only thought. However, desire can come in at this point, and usually does. We think about the options, we see an effect of one of the options, we desire that effect. Desire may in fact lead to the very search for the better job. However, rational thinking could lead to the search as well. If you require the extra money in order to feed your family, there need be no desire. You think "If I get a new job my family will be fed." so you search for the better job. If you don't find it, you don't give up and break down, you look at the options again and find a better route. The desire will make you think "I want to feed my family, but I am not able to right now. I am unhappy!" rather than "My family needs to be fed to survive, how can I get food?". The second way can be free of desire if it is acting out of pure love. This love is not desire, it is beyond it, it is selfless action. Is this not possible? If not, then I believe we are doomed. I cannot accept this.

 

I'm going to need clarification on this. I'm curious, when working on a purely rational level, restricting oneself only to that which can be proven, how can you discoun Descartes Cogito, which is essentially a solipsism? The Cogito is the foundation of modern rational thinking.

 

First, I feel you are using the word desire wrongly, when you use it to imply the clinging to desire. It's misleading.

And don't you think you can desire a better job without being unhappy? If I accept the present moment at my job, while still wanting a higher paying one, must I be suffering? I think the suffering would only be when I'm torturing myself internally with my refusal to do more than desire, when I just sit there hating this job and wishing I had a better one, but not coming back to the Now and acting. In the Now, you accept what is yet still may work to change it, and desire is the mechanism by which that is done.

If I accepted the current moment as it is without desire, I'd never do anything. I'd sit down and die, and be happy as hell doing it. But that's not how to live a life.

I think we're talking in circles here, anyways.

 

I don't think we are going in circles.

If you want a higher paying job, it is because you are unfulfilled with your current job. This is desire. You can act on desire as quickly as you want, but it is still desire, it will not cease just because it is acted upon. It will remain, the desire becomes habitual. This desire is getting us nowhere, we still want what we don't have, we still are unfulfilled. The desire does not lead to unfulfillment, the unfulfillment leads to desire. This is where we are at a disagreement. You speak of desire that can be turned into action without causing unfulfillment and suffering. I say, how can this desire even be if you are not already unfulfilled and thus suffering? Do you see what I am saying? You say that sitting around all day is not how to live a life. I say, show me how to live a life then, show me a life free from suffering, show me that this desire can be sustained while still remaining fulfilled in day-to-day activity. Thus far, humanity has gotten nowhere with its desires. We have created technology, we have vast studies into how the universe works, yet we are still suffering. We have not broken free of it. We are never fully content. If we are not fully content, we must be living in suffering. Do you disagree with this?

 

know1nozme, I simply don't want to label what we are speaking of, because this label is meaningless. There may have been teachings before that spoke of this same thing, but we are not basing our discussion off of these teachings, therefore it is not to be considered a discussion of these teachings. It is simply a discussion. If we labeled it as a belief system, someone could come along and completely reject what we are saying simply because it is part of these particular beliefs or even any belief system. This is why I do not want to call it solopsism. It may agree with it, however it is not that.

 

Only if we are attached to it.

I'm not talking about constant all-day maintanance of desire. I mean it as something that will come and go. "oh, I'm desiring food, better eat" "oh, I wish I had a better job, so I could pay my bills". The desire should be utilized for it's motivation then released. I think the point is not to IDENTIFY with the desire, to just see it as something that rises and falls, like thoughts and feelings. Desire, thoughts, and feelings have their place, and are useful to us, but they should only be used when needed, then released the rest of the time.

Hmm. I'll preface this with the fact that I'm not enlightened, so I can't say for sure. Kind of makes the whole discussion pointless since I'm not experienced in what I'm talking about, not in a total sense. That said, it depends on what we mean by content. We can accept the present moment fully without choosing to remain in that situation. If I'm sitting on something uncomfortable, just because I accept the present moment doesn't mean I have to remain uncomfortable (a biological fact, sitting on a pin hurts, dammit). To be uncontent in this sense would be to, in our minds, rant and rave about how unlucky we are for sitting on a pin, even as we get up and move it, we continue feeling sorry for ourselves, or hateful of the guy that put it there, or whatever. To be content would be to get up, move it, and sit back down. No inner suffering, even if our ass hurts like hell.

Now, you're right though, we aren't fully content in all ways. We still have to eat a few times a day, go to the bathroom, we want to find friends and we want to find love. But we can be content in the moment while we don't have these even if we are actively persuing them. Live in the present, content there, yet also being practical with some loose idea of a plan (that you don't cling to) for the future. Otherwise, it would make no difference if I just sat down and slowly starved to death, because I'd be content with my starving. Maybe we could do that, but why would we want to?

 

The only reason I said that is because we were making too many assumptions. This is why we stopped discussing the nature of the so-called 'B's, because we (all involved in this discussion, along with most of humanity) cannot know the truth of these assumptions because we are assuming things about others that are not true in ourselves. I don't feel this will lead us anywhere. I am not sure what will lead us out of the darkness we have created for ourselves, but assumptions will get us nowhere, belief will get us nowhere. Thus, it is best that we stick to what we know and what we can rationalize for ourselves. We are not basing our ideas off of theory, or atleast we are trying not to. However to rationally discussing the nature of something that you cannot know in yourself is impossible. That is why we are strictly speaking of our own experience.

Btw, agreement in experience does not make proof. It may seem some way to the masses, but it is not definitely so. Otherwise, why are we suffering?

 

It pertains to the post I brought it up in - largely because my line of reasoning only works when there is a strong interconnectedness of all things - that is: recognition that everyone/everything is "one." Ultimately this would mean there is only one mind (though possibly multi-tasking through an unimaginably large number of entites at once) - hence, solipsism.

 

It seems quite impossible to reason any of this out without making any assumptions. Face it, the premise that "desire is the root cause of all suffering" is an assumption. I would be hard pressed to believe that universal apathy (which is, to my mind the most likely result of eliminating all desire) would eradicate suffering. Yet, we have been discussing this as if that premise was a given.

Moreover, universal apathy doesn't strike me as preferable to the current desire/suffering dialectic. That is, I beleive that I would rather suffer at least 50% of the time, with occasional bouts of happiness/contentedness/fulfillment/what-you-will, than be chronically apathetic.

 

I have heard of studies that conclude that stress causes grey hairs and speed up the aging process. Is it possible that suffering speeds aging? If this is so, then what would be preferable about living a life with suffering? I am not saying it is so, however. Just a thought.

I am not so sure about the word apathy. I would use the word acceptance. It is a better word for what I am meaning to convey. If you accept the current situation as it is, there can be no desire for it to change. It is then possible to look at the situation rationally and determine the true cause, not one based on personal preference or theory. Rationality is beyond all preference or theory. If we can look at our own situation rationally, perhaps there is a possibility of ending our own suffering. However, to assume you are suffering is wrong. I believe this is where many have gone wrong. They seek to end their suffering by fulfilling the desire to end it. Perhaps they do not see their own suffering, they only believe in it because they were told "You are suffering." We should discuss this.

 

Well, wouldn't you consider suffering a stressful state? I would. Any anxiety is going to diminish health and contribute to aging, at least any sort of prolonged anxiety.