3 ms·

Sure there is. A person of enough collective benefit becomes valuable enough to the surrounding world that they can be ignorant of their own selfish needs. They

Sure there is. A person of enough collective benefit becomes valuable enough to the surrounding world that they can be ignorant of their own selfish needs. They will simply be satisfied. You needn't be sacrificial about it. That wouldn't be altruistic. It's just a strategy that can become sort of a fetish. I wouldn't call it a fantasy. It's just got some blind spots that promote a pleasant state of mind. If you're not aware of your own envy for such a state you might not notice yourself contriving reasons for it's absurdity or invalidity. It's really more of an ignorance. While the unexamined life may not be worth living, life cannot be comprehensively examined. You will always be ignorant. To be so affronted by your own ignorance that you only conceptualize it to immediately and compulsively destroy it is a gross limitation. You have the opportunity to accept more ignorance in yourself such that you can then optimize it.

javert 11y ago
I can't really follow this. For one thing, I don't know what "person of enough collective benefit" means (seems like you are missing a proposition or something). For another thing, it's not true that people are doomed to ignorance, and it seems like your argument probably rests on that assumption. I don't see for a second why you'd say people are doomed to ignorance. We use sense perception to perceive stuff, and we develop a coherent picture of the world (so we learn to reconcile optical illusions, for instance). And for all intents and purposes, that is reality, and it's objective. Maybe there's some other reality underneath that, but then, maybe there are pink unicorns dancing on Alpha Centauri; it's totally arbitrary, and thus irrelevant.
- verbin217 11y ago
  Why: "While the unexamined life may not be worth living, life cannot be comprehensively examined." I have chosen to believe that I am more finite than life. Further I believe that I can only examine a subset of each passing moment. I currently believe that the invention of seamless Virtual Reality is inevitable. Also that with it we will actually create a whole new modality of ignorance. I also believe, as Nietzsche did, that society will increasingly trend towards nihilism.
javert 11y ago
I meant "preposition" in the first sentence there.

javert 11y ago

I can't really follow this. For one thing, I don't know what "person of enough collective benefit" means (seems like you are missing a proposition or something). For another thing, it's not true that people are doomed to ignorance, and it seems like your argument probably rests on that assumption. I don't see for a second why you'd say people are doomed to ignorance. We use sense perception to perceive stuff, and we develop a coherent picture of the world (so we learn to reconcile optical illusions, for instance). And for all intents and purposes, that is reality, and it's objective. Maybe there's some other reality underneath that, but then, maybe there are pink unicorns dancing on Alpha Centauri; it's totally arbitrary, and thus irrelevant.

verbin217 11y ago
Why: "While the unexamined life may not be worth living, life cannot be comprehensively examined." I have chosen to believe that I am more finite than life. Further I believe that I can only examine a subset of each passing moment. I currently believe that the invention of seamless Virtual Reality is inevitable. Also that with it we will actually create a whole new modality of ignorance. I also believe, as Nietzsche did, that society will increasingly trend towards nihilism.

javert 11y ago

I meant "preposition" in the first sentence there.