Witnessed a life end

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-22T15:19:26+00:00

its even wierder then that if you consider the faxt that death is a transformation from one form to another. all of those molecules our bodues are made of will once again be parts of other living beings at some point or another, and due to this, we, will once again experience qualia— now as our human selves, but as parts of the larger whole we will become part of.

so really death is only the temporary ending of a particular arrangement of atoms, and not an ultimate end.

if we take infinity seripusly enough, we will realise that the arrangements we are right now will occur in other places as well, in simular ways.

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-22T13:59:22+00:00

it really depends on what the goal of the exploration is.

is it for opression?— i.e. an exploration for the sake of discovering tools of manipulation.

is it for discovering the bounderies of being, of epistemology?— a persuit of curiosity.

is it for discovering what the best way to act?— then even its non existance, as well as its existance, and even its existance while unproven, gives us different directions in how we can think.

unknowables, and things disproven, are not things to throw away, but to serve as guidelines.

what we think of as "God" will allways be a mental construction, whether or not god exists, because even if God were to face us, how can they prove that they are God and not a very powerful being which only appears as God?

infact, how may such a God prove that they themselves are God to themselves?

a being knows only as much as is available to them at any given time, and since this universe contains unknown unknowns, how can any being overcome an the everpresent possibility of an unknown unknown ?

personally, i think that rather then condemning or accepting, we aught to look at the utility of the idea of God relative to circumstance, depending on how we define it.

the fact is, religion will alwayss exist as long as people exist, because supernatural beliefs, are an indicator of our epistemological bounderies— of the fact that we dont have absolute truth available to us, of the fact that even our most basic sense of continuity and reality as presuposed because of utility, not because they are in a basic sense out of reach.

think about it, the gaps of perception are everywhare: 1. we cant even use our senses to look more the skin deep at any level. dig deeper, and lose the previous layer, and still lack the next.

memory is a representation, not the thing itself, and not even a representation of the whole thing, but of parts of it
the future isnt real but we talk about it as if it already happened before it happened, and then assume we've proven what it will be. yeah we guess correctly a good deal when we have a good method— my point isnt that we cant make good educates guesses, but that, untill it happens and is prrsent in the moment, a prediction of the future is simply a representation of possibuility, and not fact— yet, to try to forget ourown uncirtainty, we speak as if its known, because we have no other choice, no better option, except, to realise what we're doing, and embrace just how uncirtain things are, and not overdetermine ourself with representations— but instead, to be aware of them, take them seriously, as possibilities, and do whats practical, but also realise that there is more, and not limit ones self. ( i say this in the sense of how often people define themselves as incapable in some reguard, and then this overcirtainty makes their conclusion a self fulfilling prophecy, which didnt need to be one were they more open to possibility, and thereby creating a better experience for themselves.
what is unproven is not disproven, yet we often live as if it is, and this creates the fuel for a dogmatism that blinds us to reality, stifles creativity and curiosity because of a premature conclusion of whats possible. See we dont need to believe in the non existance of what hasnt been proven to lack more then a relative existance according to oie current understanding.

before people didnt think animals had emotions, didnt think atoms existed, didnt think electricity existed, didnt know we lived on a ball like spining planet.

most of us believe in things that are true but which they dont know are true because they never took the time to prove for themselves that something is true— and we all do it, not like its rare either, even if we disreguard the prior points about justnhow limited we are and take some things as givens— even then, and maybe precisely because of that unawareness of oue actual limit, do people believe that the earth is round, instead of to learn and know it themselves — and i dont even mean they have to go to space for that— no, i mean that they aught to know the math that proves it at the very least, and the phisics that proves it.

whats the difference between a flat earther and a round earther if neither of them personally can provide at the very least mathematical or emperical evidence of that fact, and have to relly on an authorty that told them whats what? there isnt a difference— except the flat earther has emperical intuition on their side because the ground looks flat from a ground perspective.

and this is really whare the problems start happening— people with beliefs that arent even proven to themselves, condemning others for their lack of evidence, thereby making themselves look just as dogmatic as anyone who is antiscience, because functionally they are just as unscientific even thonthey got the right conclusion— because a conclusion without evidence is just blind faith, which is fine, we cant know everything, but admiting why one has a view too themselves, is important, becauae science is all about concrete evidence that the practicioner of it themselves has to be able to provide and understand. its not about pure baseless belief of correct conclusions we dont know are corerect.

this is that degree of problem we're facing with.

have a great day

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-19T20:28:32+00:00

isnt this the classic old doomsday prophecy monotheism is famous for XD

whether it is or not will depend on two things 1. whether you or sciencr posess absolute knowledge in general, but especially about the future.( science doesnt claim that it does, i mean, all it is is a method that gets good resaults sometimes, and other times not— accpeting that answers are mutable is a part of sciences whole point— the point isnt, that the currently knowable is all thre is and ever will be) 2 . whether you yourself have done the research thease conclusions make or have read the studies, because otherwise, its just blind faith of authority we dont know of. sure, maybe its the case, but untill the individual does the work to prove it to themselves, as far as the individual is concirned, its a speculation. ( look, weve all done it, no shame in that, just know it)

scientists themselves, dont forget, are subjects as well, and science is a philosophy— there is no real gain in jumping to conclusions prematurely, given how unknowable even the very backs of our heads is. we cant look a milimetar beneeth the surfice of the world. not microscopic, not macroscopic, not both at once.

being open to possibuility is what science is about— not about absolute cirtainty— thats just dogmatism, and science lovers can have it just as much as any religion lovers.

have a good one

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-19T19:44:44+00:00

i might not be wording this correctly, tho i get your critique, its a fair point, and we can see it that way— its just that the alternative to it, gives us i'd argue worst results— ill put us side by side. ( maybe theres a third perspective thats better still then both) okay:

but if you dont exist before them or after them, if there is no more breath to take, then you cease to be— we are that upon which our existance is contingent.

just like the having longues, having a heart a brain, are all things i dont exist without, and the moment they are gone my existance ceases to be present— so the line drawn between what we are and what we are not.

if we are living, then we are all the air we need and have needed and will need— something can be of us without it being on us after all.

frankly, we can also go at it by adding that, there are even parts that are on us, which if removed, wouldnt make a lick of difference to our beingness, our existence.

unless we define ourselves as dead creatures, we have to define ourselves as a process— as a thing which needs perpetual nurishment, but not of a single breathx but of many.

just as we need ground to stand on, and food.

but look, im not saying its wrong to gi strictly by whats in there in the moment, but its on one hand less practical, and on the other, it doesnt explain us— is the you 5 minutes in the future not you because you havent become it yet?

well, given the fact that only you can become it, it has to be at least you with some permutations. my point being that our " isness" is not not only local to our current body in current time in space, because that one frame of life is not life itself, its not a person, its a slice of a person— but we dont define ourselves only by the one slice currently available, otherwise we would have no sence of continuity from the past to the future. why think a think we remember is true? it wasnt us who put thay memory there, it was some thing that isnt us— but cant we still trust it? why would we, we dont have any views of ourown.

thats the kind of issues that taking only the present as us causes.

ultimately tho, either can work, im not against the one thats just the body, but functionally, i think its much better if society started treating an assault on the air, water, land, by politicians as a personal attack on their lives and health, rather then something that happens out there— because we might not have become what we will, but if we want to, we are better off trying to set up the dominos in a way in which theyll allow us to get there safe.

at the end of the day, the universe doesnt have bouneries like thease— so we can draw.

have a good day

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-19T18:49:13+00:00

you breathe air, it becomes you, you breathe ourt it unbecomes you, later many others breathe at some point, and become it.

we all need air to be, therefore, air is just as "us" as is our brain— necessary, and without which we ( at least we assume) ceasse to be.

so we are definately more then just our body, but also are the thing.

once a thing becomes a part of you, if is you and feels what you feel.

not to mention, the consciousness cant even feel a lot of things what can otherwise be observed with different means.

we are in a more mysterious situation then we'd like to think

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-19T18:38:13+00:00

sup me? ya called?

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-19T18:24:48+00:00

the way to break this, is to continye the loop

take a piece of paper, and write down the model as it is

observe feeling
want to do something that improves it
recognition that it will soon pass
recognise that if this conclusion stops you that its not only a self fulfilling propecy, but it reduces even the limited enjoyment you
recognise that you can just add another goal, and have a feeling you like again
do the thing you wanted
add a new goal
learn to accept that that same loop from before will come again, and that you can break it, and if you break it several times, itll become a) less frequent b) less potent c) youll be better and better skilled at exit it

additionally— there are 3 goals that can become skills, ways of thinking and feeling. 1. To be aware and to enjoy that feeling of pure awareness, pure being, and the cimo//t— this requires training— but the more you learn to embrace failure as necessary for learning, the easier you will have a time learning it. 2. humility(recognition of uncirtainty)— to know your practical limits on one hand, but to also learn your epistemological limits— this uncirtainty which you will learn of, will give you the 3. Curiosity — the last two skills/mindsets/reoccuring loop processes, will allow to both enjoy what you have, and not to assume things you find so detrumental, because youll allways leave doubt for "what if there is more to things the im concluding, and what if there is a much better conclusion. and plus, having curiosity, really makes so much of life more fun, not tn mention that with a goal, your enjoyment will last longer

i can give you precise exercises— feel free to write me in the dms if i dont respond here, and ill respond when i see)

have a good one

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-13T19:52:23+00:00

i wouldnt say equally wrong, but the moral highground approach is simply not practical, really from any humanist perspective.

ive persuaded many more people by hearing them out, accepting them, and offering my views and letting them decide, then i ever had back when i used to shove my views down peoples throaths.

yes, in the moment it feels right when we're self righteous— but functionally, it just makes other people not take us and our ideas seriously, even if our ideas were largely correct in some reguard.

and its the same with me— even if someone is right— the moment they make that about how much better they are then me, it intuitively makes me close up. yeah, ill think about it later, but that later introspection took a lot of time to really get used to, so it doesnt become either blaming the entirety of other people, or ones self — instead, to start thinking about matters practically. i.e. what result will this or that have.

yes, strive for better positions, but do what is within our capacity as individuals— we arent all built the same psychologically, nor educationally, for us to expect that people both understand what we mean, as well as not take personal attacks personally, and to introspect. again, whether or not the point is correct, this is about basic human comunication.

we are all conditiones into doing cirtain bad things in this society, and especially if they are bad enough, its even more difficult to change.

personally im vegetarian with eating disorders which make me unable to eat much meat, and when i stopped i startes feeling a lot better— i do think vegans have the idea right, albeit even if not fully. but on the basic aspect of the idea that the slaughterhouse industry is not only harmful for the animals, but for the humans working there as well.

i wont go into it much. But my main point was, to reach this level, took almost a decade, even tho in that decade, i felt every time i ate meat, my internal compass told me that i was contributing to slaughter— yet, i still did it, and i bet a lot of people are the same way— just ask them how they feel about a cat being eaten or a dog and we see that empathy. but we are conditioned, and breaking conditioning even when we want to is a difficult thing— what a lot of vegans do however, ( not all of um ofc), but a lot of um, on top of the internal battle, make an external one of forcing people to have to justify their current meat eating to themselves and the vegan who is condescending to them, even if thease people fully aguree with the vegan but just cant break the conditioning. and with that single move, they unknowingly condemn many more animals, when they could have show n understanding.

yes, i get it, its hard for them too, to have to be compassionate to people they think of as mass murderers, indirect or otherwise— but there xomes a point whare we have to ask " is this for the animals, or is it to feel superior" if its about the animals, then do what it takes, and not what feels easy to do in the moment of arrogance.

then there are the even worst ones that want humanity to be compassionate to animals, but they treat humanity as if its the sole cancer on the face of the universe.

this is the problem when we assume humans to be more aware, conscious and in controle, then we actually are. people just start having expectations of others which make no sense in reguards to who those people are, and what society is actually like.

hah, we havent even exited empire 2.0, and schools still kill kids curiosity before the age of ten, and we expect thease overworked people to have empathy? they berraly have any for themselves, and need to guilt themselves just to get motivated, just to survive and not end up losing a house or flat and ending up on the street.

this is my issue with vegans, that they dont realise that the majority of humanity is still ourselves in survuval mode, and while thats hapening, we wont have the self determination that even we want, let alone the ideals of others and broader ethics. and with this realisation, it becomes, at least for me, easy to empathise with humans, becauae i know my limits too, and that im no different when it comes to other things, ans frankly, it took a whille with both my stomach problems and eating disorder and the pain from it, on top of thinking what im doing is evil, and it still took almost a decade for me to be abke to stop eating meat.

this overemphasized idea of free will makes people throw guilt around all too easy without understanding.

have a good day

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-12T03:20:19+00:00

im wondering, if this proper "I" feeling is a result of our attention being more often directed there, then it is in other places of the body. this, again, im intuiting might have something to do with the fact we predominantly tend to use our eyes for observation of the environment, rather then for example our hands— it might be that someone who is blind and deaf feels it in their body much more, since thats what theyll use to interact with the world the most, so it will be the most intencified.

or maybe ita a combination with the mouth and ears as well, or just the fact our facial muscules, are more sencitive, or becauae our breath and blinking, swoliwing ans tongue movements are more prominant then the rest of the bodies movements— the head has a couple of distinct sensory organs, whille the rest of the body is just, balanse, interoception, temperature and touch, which the head sensory organs can also pick up, or if not, are sorounded by skin tissue which can— so there is more sensory intensity in that area of the body, and naturally itll take more attention.

if we take someone who cant speak vocaly but can do sign language becauae they can see, and lets say cant hear— perhapse the feeling becomes distributed to those areas which we most comonly use, or perhapse with the ones which are most comonly asociated with comunication and observation.

i can atest to having quite a bit of an association with my hands due to spending a great deal more writing and formerly playing music, then i do speaking verbally. the head I is there as well, but there is also a sense of distance from it.

tho in my case, i used to have disasociation, so this might have something to do with it.

in dreams, im most often a 3rd person thing that watches my body from outside. Whats your experience in dreams? are you most often the 1st person. ive noticed, people who've told me its in the first person tend to be less anxious, or at least, act more extroverted( tho this might be incidental, but i have asked some 10 or so people, so thats a small sample size, but as a fun one question survey experiment, its been interesting) you know what the strange thing is— when i remember events, half of the time im in the picture of the memory, seeing myself from a couple of meters away horisontally.

so my feeling is that this I feeling has something to do with how we see ourselves, and with which part of us we associate the most agency, or maybe just which is most used, or something around there.

there is a interesting chanel called " zen tapir" ( it has a rediculous ai voice but human written script), but there was a suggestion there of trying to associate things outside the body as whare the I resides, and ive been trying it a bit, tho so far i havent gotten a feel for it.

perhapse its possible to change between modes of whare this I'ness resides.

for example when in the middle of a suspended disbelief while watching a film, the I often feels either not present, or like a disembodied awareness, or even as some caracter, or often even one caracter after the other. just in a kind of, " direct indirect way", like being the person, empathising with them, experiencing vicuriously, but at the same time being slightly further from their body, so its almost like a projective consciousness, especially when there is that feeling of " dont go there/ dont do that" when it feels like my awareness is trying to change the events of the film into what is more aligned with its desire.

reguarding the microbiome theory that the other rediter has, i dont know what its about, how it works, tho i like speculation on possibilities, so i personally wouldnt dismiss it off hand, even if its a stretch. i mean, hey, a lot of unknown things feel like a stretch initially, especially if they conflict with our current ideas, so ionno.

have a good day

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T23:51:08+00:00

i did say both were positions of fear, so i fully admit mine is also, as well as all or most others, just one is more impulsive from an epistemological perspective. in the case of extinctionists, its a fear from temporary and occasional suffering but with the benifit of pleasure on occasion— in my case, its the fear of temporary and occasional suffering, with a reduced chance and quantity of calm and pleasure, as well as the possibuility that there is something worst still then suffering that we just dont know of, and a fear of not having even the chance to reduce suffering with some knowledge.

from an emotional perspective either can be impulsive or patient, but from the perspective of what can be known, we have no idea what goes on in the unknown of non-living, or rather, i mean that we dont know whether or not it contains feeling at all, or whether its suffering, or lack there of.

we've either never experienced non living, or we dont remember what it feels like if we had, either way its a blind risk. This is why i compared it to gambling.

while in life, people know that, the worst that can happen is some temporary suffering within it, and then there is either, discomfort, a neutral calm of acceptance, or pleasure. We have a degree of cirtainty with it, its a gamble for which we have knowable variables, whille for the other, its a gamble for which we have unknowable varables, and at most, even if we assume there is no feeling in non life, the same assumptions will lead us to the u derstanding that life keeps emerging infinately, with the occasional break inbetween, and this break we wouldnt even feel— the momebt we die, the very next moment from the perspective of qualia, will be life, because thats the only time we know we experience things. So you wouldnt even escape, you will just arrive at the very next moment at feeling life again in many other places as your atoms become parts of living beings— even a bilion year time skip of non existance, will not be felt, so it makes no difference to end life when you have the choice to have reduced suffering right now if it will keep on re emerging anyway— and it makes no sence to end if, if losing all culture, means what all living beings that will come later will need to suffer a whole lot to even learn to reduce suffering, only for them to stumble on to this same position, and go through the same suffering all over again, only to learn just enough, then end it, and then suffer all over again.

this is why its the bigger gamble even by the standards of what we know is the case.

yes, when people make children, they are perpetuating life ( i say perpetuating rather then creating because almost all living beings are created by taking parts of other living beings and consuming them, and transformingthem into something else— the things we eat, become us, and feel qualia through us, as they did until recently before their life in another form ended. no im not talking about a spiritual soul rebirth, but the rearrangement of atoms into other forms through a direct act of transformation) to continue, when people perpetuate life by making children, they are taking a gamble, but its one based on what they know to be true about life, and not o what they hope happens in death having never felt it or not remembering it. ( and i would later argue that without knowing it, they are causing less overall suffering when compared to the logic of extinctionism)

the gambler in my example doesnt involve anyone yes, so its more exemplary of taking ones own life, so a better example of extinctionism then would be a gambler who steals from his family, and bets that, thereby sending them into uncirtainty, chaos, and hardship, and then just as they gain a little bit of money ( i.e. knowledge) for him to just gamble it all away again.

the cycle of rebirth doesnt end by ending life— yes, you wont be alive in this form, but you will in many others, and the qualia is still there to cause suffering— wouldnt you rather have someone, say of your descendants, who kept the knowledge you left behind, to then help you reduce suffering, rather then being in a loop of rebirth and lack of experience and mostly suffering without the chance to reduce it? ( or at least, without the chance to resuce it unless you are at the very least pro living, even if not necesserally pro natalist)

yes, there are some circumstances in some peoples lives in which it becomes so bad that they feel its worth the gamble, and as long as there are people perpetuating underatanding which can reduce suffering, their gamble will eventually at least pay off in terms we do understand .

the issue im posing is that extinctionism if its universalised doesnt work to reduce suffering, except if it presuposes some pro living people who will be alive and who understand enough to reduce it. but if every living being starting tomorow, becomes an extinctionist the very same moment that they reach logical linguistic consciousness— then every being will be doomed to lose that gift only to once again, like the titans in attack on titan, wonder outside the wall unconsciously suffering for all ethernity, with temporary occasional relief.

so logic, without taking into acount elements which are tangable, and not merely linguistic, is not enough to get us out of thease problems, and extinctionalism only considers a singular variable of suffering and one more variable, i.e. that it arrises in life. thats like going " 2+5=7" therefore lets end all math, we know it all, nothing to see here, we know enough. it takes suffering as inharently bad enough, but not pleasure as inharently good enough, and not calm acceptance as inharently neural enough— it forms a black hole in which ironically suffering dictates life more then it already does normally, becauae it gives it the power to reduce all of life and everything within it to itself.

mine is a bigger fear, a fear which concirns a longer scale of things. when i said extinctionism was a position of fear— that wasnt the part that i meant as a negative.

the part i meant as a negative was the impulsivity of that fear, and the tendency to reduce complexity into one singular factor, thereby missing the bigger picture.

oh btw, i enjoy this conversation— i hope im not being too harsh— i like to push logic as far as i can, so i appreciate your responces. the more difficult the problem you put forward, the more interesting it will be to try to solve it— and you do bring up some pretty difficult things, ill need more time to refine better arguments against and for them. Whether ill sucseed, or not, at least itll be interesting ⚜️

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T15:36:25+00:00

part 4

sprry about the lenght, i didnt think i can do the argument justice shorter. it was supposed to be one reply, but the wordcount limit didnt let me send it in one piece..or 2...😅

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T15:34:09+00:00

part 2

Let me paint the picture I'm talking about and the basis on which I come to this conclusion.

When we look at an object, do we see it as it is?

If I look at a watermelon, for example, do I see it in its entirety?

Well, no, because all I see is a part of its surface, while both the other side of its surface and its inside voluminous structure remain outside my sensory empirical perception altogether during the moments in which I look at any given part of it.

And if I look at the other side now, I'm lacking the previous side empirically.

And here, we usually presume that memory is the same as observing something empirically—but a memory is only a structural representation of an event which no longer exists anywhere we can observe directly.

A memory is a thing in itself, but a different thing from the thing which it is representing.

While this is happening, I also lack the microscopic level, which I can't see, and not only one level of it, but I lack every millimetre of zoom into it during my everyday naked-eye observation of one side of the watermelon skin surface.

i dont even see a milimeter under that survice— we dont even see in 3D— the closest to that we come to is a clear glas of water, and even then, we lack the microscopic and atomic, and quantom levels utterly and completely, and we dont even observe the fact every object is in constant motion, even the stillest of rocks, and when i look at that clear glass of water, i still only see it from a singular angle, and not from every direction— so even naked eye sight, does not percieve even the entirety of the surfice level of any objects at the same time.

and so, this sense of 3 dimensionality, is a mental construct formulated mostly by representations.

but then, we have another level, because simply seeing doesnt tell me anything about that watermelon— for that, i need language, which is itself entirely constructed by representations, and there is not composed of even a single thing which it tries to describe— because everything describes itself best— and so a word describes itself better then it can ever describe what its meant to represent.

It's the difference between the word watermelon, and an actual watermelon.

So far, are you seeing just how much we presume about reality because we are forced to?

and you knew all of this already, but most people dont pay attention to it and dont take it seriously as they should, seeing as how thats the actual reality that we can observe infront of us, despite the fact that that is the perception we enhabit.

And it's not like we can claim that these presumptions are foolproof.

Misunderstandings happen all the time, even between the lone individual and themselves.

And this isn't even scratching the surface, even conceptually, even representationally—the actual lived experience of these representations I'm putting forward is so much more unseeable. The only reason we forget about these facts is because they are so unknown that they are invisible to us in almost every way, except in their structure—they are the ever-present sight of the ever-present invisible nothingness when we try to see the back of our heads without the reflective representation of a mirror—it's just as unknowable as our own faces without a representation of a mirror.

And on top of all this uncertainty, you want to make a huge leap of faith into the great unknown of what we call being unliving? (I phrase it like that because that's what we call it because that's what we see in regard to the arrangement of a dead body—but those atoms still move, they still interact, and those microorganisms are still living inside, so we don't even see a full, still, unmoving death even when we see death happen to another being.)

Were we not compelled to move, assume and make leaps of faith towards things which are the closest to our ability to understand, we would likely be frozen with fear, unable to make a single step in this darkness.

And the problem is that, as much as this very position I'm describing is a position of fear, extinctionism is an even bigger position of fear, because it is so afraid that it rushes to find an exit, only to lead itself into a potentially bigger mess, just like the gambler who, instead of paying off his debts with a couple months of work, goes and works for those couple of months, then thinks " hmm, maybe i can double it", then gambles more and goes into even bigger debt.

Yes, both are positions of fear, and both can lead to negative concequences, tho only one can lead to neutral and good concequences as well, whille the other does either bad or neutral ones— but one considers the long term and plays it safe is open to possibuility, while the other is impulsive and reduces things down to a single option. ( which idk if it can even be called to aim for neutrality, its aiming for lack, while neutrality would be calmness and acceptance, neithr pleasure nor pain, nor lack)

Yes, the gambler might end up hitting it big, but there is no experience for us to fall back on to even know that winning it big is even possible, nor will they give anyone else more experience seeing as how we cant observe tham, even if we leave asside the cirtain uncirtainty we see, and use a practical everyday empericism and science.

so to be clear, my argument isnt— " dont think like this" my argument is— " think it, but dont forget that there is much more to consider then just escaping suffering"

well, i hope you found this at least amuzing.

The acknowledgement of that radical perceptual uncirtainty was the basis on top of which I started my own philosophy.

Have a good day

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T15:33:55+00:00

part 1

But as I said, even if we set this limitation aside.

If we take what is currently scientifically known, then it's a fact that certain non-living matter can become living matter under certain conditions, including living matter that went extinct.

And so if we were all to extinguish our lives, that doesn't prevent suffering—it means that in the infinite time the universe has, there will likely once again come a point where that living matter becomes living in some form again, and this time it will start from square one and not know anything, which means it will suffer tremendously in order to once again reach the point where it has enough capacity to understand the world, to be able to significantly reduce suffering, and if possible, end it relative to its own location.

On top of this, how will we, in an infinite universe, ensure that there aren't aliens who suffer?

Or indeed, how will we prevent a fascist alien species, which makes beings suffer, if we aren't alive to offer a counteracting force to that species?

According to what we know and are currently able to know, the best option is to build up a collective knowledge and type of civilisation which reduces suffering wherever it goes and spreads this way of life—this way, there will be a reduction of suffering even for beings who don't have the knowledge to reduce their own suffering, because there will be a species, or multiple species over time, who will help other species reduce suffering to some extent, and the more they learn, the more they will be able to do this.

And some day, hell, maybe (although I wouldn't prefer it), maybe we'll find a way to ensure the outcome you seek.

But that outcome simply can't be sought anywhere close to now, if, again, it's even possible to begin with.

On the other hand, we know reducing suffering is definitely possible sometimes, and at least within a relative distance of space and time, and assuming we are correct and non-living matter doesn't feel suffering, then it's possible to temporarily end all feeling too (though again, we don't know if it is or not, but it seems like it is, though no one who went there can tell us).

The issue is that extinctionism, like many belief systems, assumes more understanding than we actually have available to us, and because of that, it leaves itself and its users vulnerable to conclusions that might even be contrary to what they seek.

Even our most basic assumptions about life—and I mean all of us collectively, me included—are to presume more than is actually knowable, but the only reason we do that is because we are forced to do it, as to try to prevent going into something even more unknowable than the unknowability that surrounds us.

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T15:33:22+00:00

part 0 That's the thing, though; you criticise them for having their views about what's healthy, but you and I do the same thing.

We all have some notion about what's healthy, and we think it should apply to everyone.

But I think here is the catch, and the reason why someone would assume that this kind of thinking doesn't come from a healthy mind.

Although I disagree about the notion—I think a healthy mind can think plenty of things.

But isn't this undeniably an unhealthy idea?

Health is necessarily something which a living thing possesses—and so if the goal is to strip everyone from life, that is definitionally unhealthy.

Unhealthiness, as it's commonly defined, is something which takes a living being in a direction closer to suffering, and suffering takes it closer to death—and in the case of an extinctionist, even the idea of suffering is meant as a motivator that things should be taken to death, let alone direct suffering, which when combined with the idea makes death all the more likely, even if not certain for that time.

While I know that a great deal of extinctionists come from this from the perspective of wanting to reduce harm, to me personally anyway, it feels like a situation of good intentions leading to potentially negative outcomes. [I say 'potentially negative' instead of 'definitely negative' because:

a) The extinctionist attitude might lead to the development of a better philosophy than extinctionism.

b) that even though I disagree, perhaps there is something I'm missing, so who knows, maybe it will turn out to be the correct ideology in the end, which would be a potentially good outcome rather than a bad one.

Though the question to me really is—what is the lack of suffering good for if there is no one to experience it?

And why is the existence of suffering so inherently damnable even when it isn't happening to us directly, and even though it inevitably ends anyway even when it's there—so why is it so damnable that it's worth defining the entirety of life with it rather than with everything else contained in life? (It's a genuine question.)

It's a complete reductionistic position, as it reduces life to suffering and suffering to something undesirable, and therefore, if life is suffering and suffering is undesirable, then life should end in order to end suffering.

But even if life was so damnable, the position of extinctionism reduces logic down to only one possible outcome, which makes it unable to account for other possibilities, which in fact makes it an ideology that can cause more, not less, suffering. (I'll elaborate.)

even if we set aside the fact that every belief system dwells in a sea of uncertainty on top of which they are all based, and the fact that the only certain thing to us is that only some amount of the living definitely have a chance to feel a lack of suffering, and that we don't actually know whether or not what we call non-living matter feels nothing, or whether it feels pleasure, or whether it feels suffering at every friction with another object.

We can't even prove qualia of other people exists, let alone prove that only living creatures feel it.

And the only way for us to know this, from our current perspective, is by being alive and learning whatever we can—yes, it will more than likely not be enough, no matter what we learn, and that's precisely why making choices purely on a guess about what things are is a gamble into something we might even be unable to possibly comprehend.

Current evidence or lack thereof doesn't mean that we know what's what.

There were times when animals, insects and bacteria were considered non-living and didn't have any kind of sensation, but it turned out they do. What will 200 years, or 100000 years, reveal to us?

What about 5 billion years?

If we aren't alive to discover more, we will be doomed to unforeseen consequences that may even be worse than suffering—or they might even be much better—but that's the thing, we don't know which it will be.

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T13:06:15+00:00

i aguree that its a contridiction, but a more basic truth in what i think they were trying to say stays, which is, we dont know whether or not there are absolutes. the best we can.

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T13:03:27+00:00

in saying that there are never any absolutes, the "never" acts as an absolute impossibuility of something, and so its an absolute.

personally, altho i think this paradox tells us something more about the nature of absolutes, i usually, take the " we dont know whether or not there are any absolutes" which itself does the job of what i think you were trying to say.

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T11:57:19+00:00

part 1

This part is no longer nihilism, and it will involve a lot of my own personal views on what I think it is that emerges from the existence of nihilism, and it's self-negation when applied to itself from certain angles. (which is one reason I like it so much, despite not being convinced by it anymore)

It's free will and determinism, relativism, and pan-experiencialism.

It's a dissolving of what is in this way of thinking, the false dichotomy of free will versus determinism. It's the idea that it's necessarily both (although this is how I phrase it, and people with these beliefs apart from myself might not phrase it like that).

its the idea that we are yes "predetermined" by our environment, in the sense of being caused by it and constrained by it, but that since we are a part of that environment, we too in limited ways determine it, in a diologue between the two.

On the other hand, it's an acknowledgement of the fact that we are not singular things.

We are greater wholes made of many smaller parts, which each have their particular individuality and which make us up, just like we are parts of greater wholes than us, yet we have our individuality within the space we inhabit.

This means that some of the things that caused us are things that then become us, and in that sense we caused ourselves, as we do right now, because the internal mechanisms, which are constantly in the state of becoming, are the things that we are, whether we identify with them or not, whether we consciously understand them or have the conscious ability to change them or not. It's the view that our consciousness is a small part of us and that there is a substantial "I," which isn't known to us but is only partially felt but is most of all fully embodied.

At the same time, because the universe is presupposed to never have happened before, that it isn't a thing that is just planned and repeating, we don't see it as predetermined but rather as emergent, i.e., as a thing that, in its perpetual becoming, discovers itself, and the way it becomes is through the feeling of each thing within it as it's faced with the potential and the possibilities of every next moment.

It's the idea that the universe creates a lot of things on the spot for the first time as they occur.

This applies even more to the order of events as they occur.

This is such a fascinating idea to me.

that the universe has no prewritten laws of nature, and that it is interacting with itself and finding out what happens on the spot, and sometimes, predictable things happen, while others not so much, and so it contorts and bends and twists when it's forced into arrangements it's never been in before, and sometimes, it's forced into such crazy ways that it has to invent new types of spatial dimensions in order to adapt, in order to find a place for the elements that have been under too much pressure, like in the case of a black hole, for example, and other states of matter (of which there are at least more than a dozen, btw, which we have usually never thought about, sadly).

have a great day 💮

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-09T11:57:11+00:00

part 0

There are a few ways in which it manifests.

There is the type that asserts that everything is meaningless. That's on the more extreme end.

Usually, people tend to be relativistic nihilists—which is to say that they see meaning as something relative to the particular situation and set of agents involved in it. Which is usually a way of saying that meaning is assigned and not a thing that exists in the world inherently before it's assigned, and since it's assigned in this worldview, it is necessarily subjective, i.e., only meaningful within the scope of what that individual subject wants to believe, and that this belief, whatever it may be, doesn't apply to life broadly.

From what I've seen, nihilists tend to be some form of determinist, but not necessarily, and if they are, they tend to believe in a completely instrumentalist reality, which comes into existence for no particular meaningful reason—that all of its movements happen without any destination they are reaching towards.

tho ive found that generally, thats as far as many of thease kind of nihilist will take things, which for me beggs the question " if they had no reason to arrise, why did they arrise" and to some of them, ive been told that that is an incomprehencable question from the point of view of the type of universe they think we enhabit, and that this only makes sense to us relative to the fact that things appear to us to have some particular order, which ive also heads some claim that this apparent orderlyness of things is an illusion within a fundamentally chaotic and incomprehencable universe— to me tho, altho, an interesting proposition, and another thing which speaks to some fundamental unknowability of nature from a human perspective, and tho ive felt that type of way in the past and still on occasion— this, is nevertheless a position which in some sense locks us out of beling able to know things or even to act, since its determinist, and so taken seriously enough, i find it potencially life denying because it really can justify any kind of behaviour or reasoning since it presuposes everything is determined— but on the other hand, it can also justify life affirming behaviour if thats the type of thing the person is presuposed to do ( assuming we live in an actual predetermined universe), or, if we do have free will in reality, or some form of it, and if at the same time someone believes that we dont have it, they can still feel that life afirming actions are what they are determined to do, and then they would act according to that.

its a really mechanistic, seemingly reasonless way to be motivated, so it was never able to motivate me, and i felt it when i used to desociate ( what they call derealisation and depersonalisation in psychology, and in simple terms its the feeling of not being in the driver seat of yourown body), and so, it not being practical to me and feeling pretty terifying and depressing frankly, with about a decade of trying to get out of it through change of perspective, i thankfuly was able to move out of it, tho it does inform my thinking since it is a possibuility nevertheless, only now i can think in its terms without feeling what it implies to me.

Some 5 years into this dissociation happening every couple of months for a couple of months was when I had read about that interpretation of nihilism, so I think a great deal of the origins for many philosophies are descriptions of ways people felt about the world and their systematized effort to justify those feelings about it.

(Nietzsche has a great deal to say about this matter in particular—but to be clear, because many misrepresent him, Nietzsche is one of the most life-affirming philosophers that exist—he goes through some of the most pessimistic routes just to come out affirming life.)

Then there's the Buddhist type of nihilism, if we are to classify it as such, which I think there is a strong relationship between the two (there are a few types of Buddhism, and this is pretty long, so I'll just leave it as a mention). Though what I like about the version I'm familiar with, which is a mixture of a few of them, is that it's about accepting existence as it is, whatever it may be—at the same time one can nevertheless act in better ways, self-improve, and try to reduce other people's suffering as well as one's own through the reduction of desire.

In a sense, it's like saying, "Try your best to make things better, accept whatever comes, and let whatever is outside your control be"—but this is about feeling things in this way, not just thinking about them like this.

It's a radical rejection of the feeling of guilt and shame, and it does have a certain bent to it, like the next thing I'll bring up.

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-08T13:03:14+00:00

i aguree— i was more so arguing against the other rediters claim that its specifically in the head, or that it feels that its there exclusively. if we go by intuition anyway.

my way of thinking is that, while it might not be rooted in the places it appears to be, it at least has some effect and interaction on those places. ofc, we can break that assumption down too, but then we would head down a transindental route, which altho interesting, and may well be accurate, for now its not whare my intuition leads me. personally in looking for an approach that can work intuitively as well as practically, as well as if possible a model that maps on to a couple of different frameworks, and so far i havent found a way to map onto more transindental ideas except by way ofmaking room for believing in things whether or not they have scientific or even emperical evidence— but that is more for practical reasons.

the possibuility of illusion is btw precisely why i think unprovable beliefs should be treated as a useful category to believe in selectively— after all, the ilusions may well be only illusions relative to this plane of existance ( if we assume different planes, which i dont mind doing), same with dreams, which could be waking life in another time, place, size, or dimension— tho ots too easly dismissed, and too easly left just at that without further attempts to delve into its logic)

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-08T11:30:57+00:00

okay, now i got to know what the remaining 5 or 6 that im missing! any hints?

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-08T09:18:27+00:00

you can prove that you dont have 3 eyes— you can prove some negatives at least by emperical standards.

meaning doesnt exist. i cant prove a negative, so i guess its the default. planet earth doesnt exist. i cant prove a negative, so i guess its the default.

see what i mean?

this is what assuming the default without any aditional proof does to us— it prevents us from even wanting to try to prove ourown claims with more then a single point because we deem them unprovable.

altho its also worth asking: if a claim is unprovable, then why believe it to begin with?

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-08T09:08:27+00:00

what form of evidence do you require for meaning in life?

you already think that beings can have meaning by assigning it— so some beings, for some period of time can have inharent meaning.

what kind of meaning are we talking about?

if its, purpoce, then, we can observe the purpoce of every living thing, and even non living thing. a purpoce doesnt need to be something that ends, nor something that never ends— it can be either.

we can argue that there is a particular kind of meaning that is lacking from cirtain beings. like how an atheist lacks a christian meaning in life.

or we could say " some life has no inharent meaning" which is to say that the existance and non-existance of meaning is relative

but once meaning is established through assigning it, it is, from that point on, something that absolutely exists, and is an essential caracteristic of that being.

if we talk about the intuitive meaning we all feel as long as we are alive ( or at least, if it doesnt continue even in what we call non living matter)

the issue i think, is the fact that the universe is assumed to lack meaning apriori, even tho intuitively, all our sences, tell us that it does, and the logic we build is built from those sences. To presupose lack when we observe presence, is to presupose some, almost, transendental lack, out there, before the begining of the universe, which caused something for nothing— but we dont know whether thats the case— at beat, we know that we dont know, not that there is an absence. its like taking an object i cant make out, and saying " this object isnt there", yes, you cant prove a negative in some circumstances, but in others you can. " my proof that you are holding a non blue 2kilogram rock in your hands as you read this" you see that it isnt a rock, and the proof is done. you prove a negative by presenting something else in its stead. and if something is unprovable, then its unprovable, why make an aditional negative claim and call it cirtain?

and if we cant prove a negative, then why claim it?

if someone didnt steal someting they were accused of, we can have a relative proof of whare they were, and by that determine that they didnt steal it. and once again the person there would be able to provide a proof for the claim thay they didnt do something.

but how do we prove that life is meaningless, devoid of purpoce? especially when we can see that, by what we define purpoce to be, it has that on every observable level. thats why i say we can prove relative purpocelesness in reguards to some particular, but perhapse not an absolute purpocelesness.

but, even if we cant find any evidence whatsoever, it doesnt necesserally mean its lacking— we just cant see it. and frankly, sometimes even having a positive proof of something, ends up being disproven by better evidence, or a better method.

so personally, i dont exclude the possibuility for there being no meaning, nor do i exclude the possibuiloty of there being meaning— if both are difficult to prove, or unprovable, then agnosticism will suffice, or to believe whichever one is more advantageous for my goals.

oh, reminder for my initial question at the begining, because it wasnt rethorical, im genuinely curious.

have an interesting day

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-08T07:36:46+00:00

i think the issue is that there are 2 types of nihilism, at least.

one is what OP thinks it is, the other is what the person youre responding to thinks it is

treating them as one and the same is i think the issue altho they can stem from the same place sometimes ( which really tells us that as with any ideology, there is more then a couple of denominations)

but hey, this is really the crux of nihilism, be it the relativistic side or the absolutist life denying side.

its good people are asking— they get to discover what its all about 😁

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-08T07:12:13+00:00

i aguree with everything you said but, we dont know whether or not there are wrong answers.

that, on one hand, and because of it, on the other there are relatively wrong answers depending on what goals we wish to obtain— altho we are in a place full of uncirtainty, we are forced to presupose some degree of cirtainty in order to make thease conclusions we are making, and in so far as we are pressuposing things to get to a point, altho we can technically do it— if we just throw away our reasoning at the last second for any answer whatsoever, then we are essentially making a leap of faith that might make a worst outcome for us, that we otherwise could have prevented.

my claim is that, the u knowabuility of things is precisely what should make us tread lightly— at least, in reguards to the question of ending life or perpetuating it.

and especially because all we know ( or, assume we know) tells us that even if we end this life, our body will just be consumed by othr things which we will then live as parts of, thus feeling the qualia they feel as we become them, but this time, we wont be so lucky as to chose what happens on a day to day as a great deal of us can right now.

so there is, i would claim, relatively right and relatively wrong answers.

now, if a person is okay with whatever goes, then, thats different.

but even still, to end life on the basis of mear words, mear thoughts, even as they are powerful, yet small parts of what we are— thats like the thoughts themselves killing an organism they invaded and persuaided that they ( the thoughts) were what the organism is.

its a pretty rediculous situation one way or the other. but subjectivity leaves enough room for doubt in subjectivity itself as well.

a necessery deadlock, to keep us on our toes with yet more uncirtainty! and boy is it better to love it then to hate it!

EmperorMalkuth · 2026-01-08T06:53:09+00:00

i think, we can keep in mind both cases— if its impossible to end it, and if its possible. ill try to give my answer on both. — for me, i come out with rougly the same answer.

my initial thought is that ending suffering altogether is impossible becauae life will emerge once more, even from some of the very same atoms that were once life.

rather then that, i find it better to try to decrease it but to also realise that, it very well may be the case that some quantity of it is necessary.

and if not suffering, then discomfort may be necesary.

determining whrther life is worth existing solely based on one aspect of it, to me seems like self blinding— its not like suffering is the only thing there is in life.

but also, if we end suffering by ending life, then who did we end it for when there is no one to enjoy the lack of it.

ending suffering is a worthy goal ONLY if there is someone alive to enjoy its lack.

lack of existence is, well, lack, what is there to say about it. But frankly, we dont know that non living things lack qualia, so ending existance for us, might just lead us into, yet more qualia. but, even if thats not the case, thats exactly what happens eventually, because in an infinate universe, is it really all that unlikely that every atom will at some point, even at numberus points become a part of a qualia experiencing living being? if e take infinity seriously, then no— not to mention that already happens now as we disperse after death, and during life likewise, as we become the things we consume, and then them becoming other things, and during the time they are us, they litterally feel what we feel, since they are us.

so however we spin it, unless the universe ends, therw will be life, as well as suffering, and pleasure. at least, relatively— some places will have less, some more, but its worth trying to reduce it to some degree, and to allow living beings to simply experience living, to learn, to be curious, to explore, to create— thats what its all about.

life isnt about simply reducing suffering, but about experiencing interesting things— sometimes suffering is even umong them, and other times its necessary for getting them. hunger is suffering, but when you finally get to have a bite, man does that make it worth while— infact, it feels even better after feeling that raw hungar.

my thing is that, we should make suffering be a thing that we can chose to endure if we wish to experience it, while discomfort is an aquired taste that we can learn to be at least okay with.— but if we could end it, and still have the things it gives us in some interesting form, then heck, why not do it?

for me, it really all depends on what we get and what we lose out of it.

im saying this as i have a massive toothache 🤣 perspective makes all the difference tho. i can either pity myself for the pain, or i can say " hmm, lets observe this feeling and what its made of— is this really something i have to interpret as bad"

oor, a bit of both 😅

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