😄 nah. as a true generalisation, yes, it's possible to not get annoyed, since we know that for many, this is the actuality. but in every particular instant, still only one thing happens as it does; the only possibility. there is no open future, only uncertainty in our predictions, anticipation, simulations. some people suffer, some don't. no one chooses, since neither had potential alternative options to harness into actuality, neither could do otherwise.
if you eliminate 'choice', the fact still remains that eg. sometimes for you, it was (only) possible to not suffer, and for others, sometimes it wasn't. adding 'choice' does no explanatory work, except maybe to emphasize lack of obvious coercion by other organism(s). it turns out that reality is such that it's possible to not suffer and also to suffer at different times for you.
"But reality is reality. The scratch has happened. The suffering as applied after the fact, after reality, is suffering itself. Such suffering is a choice. The person who bemoans the fact of reality is in truth choosing to be miserable."
slapping 'it's a choice' is just a magical non-explanation that's jarringly out of touch with our best collective empirically grounded explanations. it also seems incoherent to say that reality is always exactly as it is and not otherwise, while atst claim that suffering—or anything—is something that can be applied after the fact, as if eg. suffering is somehow not the same & only reality, like via the magical 'choice' we just jumped out of reality, contained it as separate existents and applied a novel existent back into it with ourselves. it's incoherent.
bemoaning any aspect of reality or whatever other happening/event/occurrence is still only ever just that same reality, equally necessary as any and everything else. there's no jumping out of reality, no magical rifts created via 'choice'.
this doesn't attack the conjecture that existence is joyous, that capital-B 'Being' (?) is happiness and other similarly obscure, mystical pronouncements, nor normative stances. idc. this hobbitcore cozycope is magical, incoherent and nonsensical that grasps for certain valence clusters & resists against others. but it's fine, because you couldn't have done otherwise, and reality is always exactly how it is and not otherwise, necessarily.
Keeping this within the bounds of the given example.
If you walk to your car and find it has been scratched, are you not making the choice to then suffer more (anger, anxiety, frustration) in the face of that which simply *is*?
i simply find 'making a choice' unintelligible upon sustained critical reflection and research, except if it's used to just indicate that *your* reaction/interpretation of the scratch is in fact *yours* and not someone else's. clear and trivial attribution.
otherwise, it's a thought-terminating cliché/magical thinking. you can find that people, when probed to explain how this 'choice' is meaningful, will resort to some contrafactual reasoning to assert that you could have done otherwise, like there's some passage of becoming or harnessing the virtual/potential realm into actuality through your magical jumping out of reality and choosing. i just cannot convince myself of the truth of these speculative assertions.
so no, i think no one is ever choosing anything in that sense. stuff just happens in a patterned way, with either one causal structure, full randomness, (randomness can be any pattern, even our most confirmed empirical findings may be random), or both.
i guess this isn't new for you, this is just nominalism about the virtual/abstract/potential. imagined alternatives are just that; actual imaginations, not non-actual non-imagined realms accessible by us to be chosen from and harness into actuality.
an other way to avoid this is by wildly positing that 'choice' is a brute, unexplainable, irreducible aspect of reality. i even find actual infinity more appealing than that.
practically, this means it's nonsensical to hold people responsible or desert-apt when they suffer. you can and it works—it literally & obviously has an effect—certain justifications for it just don't make sense as explanations. i never had this 'i have free will, i am choosing, i am an agent, future is open...' phenomenology and sans that, the arguments for it have 0 appeal.
only what is actual is possible. clearly, at leash 1 person (realistically, many many) don't detach, but grasp onto misery and suffer. in such cases, in what sense are never-actual states possible?
what sense does it make to say that someone who actually suffers in a given instant, instead of doing whatever it is you're doing now, chose that over alternatives? where is this alternative reality enabling choice that's never actual? can you explain what you mean by choice without using that word?
You will inevitably on at-least some level feel some kind of suffering by the scratch on your car, but the point James is making here is that is very possible to consciously tone down your emotional reaction to it happening (aggression, misery, despair, disgust, fear, anxiety, tearfulness). My dad was a very aggressive driver, and frequently resorted to road rage, I never understood it, but it clearly had a negative effect on him even though it was something he could have stopped doing.
well, no, i just think it's meaningless to say that your dad could have stopped & james agreed, as we agree that only the actual is possible. if it is the case that your dad did not actually stop raging, then it was never possible for him to stop in those instants.
clearly, some people tone down the misery and some don't. to retroactively say that those who didn't could have done so is meaningless. it's like saying that my bed could have been a car, or that this tabby cat could have been black. read amy karofsky's 'a case for necessitarianism' and robert sapolsky's 'determined' if you're interested in why 'choice' is an incoherent non-explanation.
Now for the real test, James. Can you see misery and hatred as a flower?
😄 nah. as a true generalisation, yes, it's possible to not get annoyed, since we know that for many, this is the actuality. but in every particular instant, still only one thing happens as it does; the only possibility. there is no open future, only uncertainty in our predictions, anticipation, simulations. some people suffer, some don't. no one chooses, since neither had potential alternative options to harness into actuality, neither could do otherwise.
if you eliminate 'choice', the fact still remains that eg. sometimes for you, it was (only) possible to not suffer, and for others, sometimes it wasn't. adding 'choice' does no explanatory work, except maybe to emphasize lack of obvious coercion by other organism(s). it turns out that reality is such that it's possible to not suffer and also to suffer at different times for you.
"But reality is reality. The scratch has happened. The suffering as applied after the fact, after reality, is suffering itself. Such suffering is a choice. The person who bemoans the fact of reality is in truth choosing to be miserable."
slapping 'it's a choice' is just a magical non-explanation that's jarringly out of touch with our best collective empirically grounded explanations. it also seems incoherent to say that reality is always exactly as it is and not otherwise, while atst claim that suffering—or anything—is something that can be applied after the fact, as if eg. suffering is somehow not the same & only reality, like via the magical 'choice' we just jumped out of reality, contained it as separate existents and applied a novel existent back into it with ourselves. it's incoherent.
bemoaning any aspect of reality or whatever other happening/event/occurrence is still only ever just that same reality, equally necessary as any and everything else. there's no jumping out of reality, no magical rifts created via 'choice'.
this doesn't attack the conjecture that existence is joyous, that capital-B 'Being' (?) is happiness and other similarly obscure, mystical pronouncements, nor normative stances. idc. this hobbitcore cozycope is magical, incoherent and nonsensical that grasps for certain valence clusters & resists against others. but it's fine, because you couldn't have done otherwise, and reality is always exactly how it is and not otherwise, necessarily.
Keeping this within the bounds of the given example.
If you walk to your car and find it has been scratched, are you not making the choice to then suffer more (anger, anxiety, frustration) in the face of that which simply *is*?
i simply find 'making a choice' unintelligible upon sustained critical reflection and research, except if it's used to just indicate that *your* reaction/interpretation of the scratch is in fact *yours* and not someone else's. clear and trivial attribution.
otherwise, it's a thought-terminating cliché/magical thinking. you can find that people, when probed to explain how this 'choice' is meaningful, will resort to some contrafactual reasoning to assert that you could have done otherwise, like there's some passage of becoming or harnessing the virtual/potential realm into actuality through your magical jumping out of reality and choosing. i just cannot convince myself of the truth of these speculative assertions.
so no, i think no one is ever choosing anything in that sense. stuff just happens in a patterned way, with either one causal structure, full randomness, (randomness can be any pattern, even our most confirmed empirical findings may be random), or both.
i guess this isn't new for you, this is just nominalism about the virtual/abstract/potential. imagined alternatives are just that; actual imaginations, not non-actual non-imagined realms accessible by us to be chosen from and harness into actuality.
an other way to avoid this is by wildly positing that 'choice' is a brute, unexplainable, irreducible aspect of reality. i even find actual infinity more appealing than that.
practically, this means it's nonsensical to hold people responsible or desert-apt when they suffer. you can and it works—it literally & obviously has an effect—certain justifications for it just don't make sense as explanations. i never had this 'i have free will, i am choosing, i am an agent, future is open...' phenomenology and sans that, the arguments for it have 0 appeal.
thx for engaging w/ me, appreciate your work!
I don't fully understand your comment to be honest.
The reaction to the scratch is my reaction - free will or not - I can detach from needless unhappiness regarding the reality at hand.
only what is actual is possible. clearly, at leash 1 person (realistically, many many) don't detach, but grasp onto misery and suffer. in such cases, in what sense are never-actual states possible?
what sense does it make to say that someone who actually suffers in a given instant, instead of doing whatever it is you're doing now, chose that over alternatives? where is this alternative reality enabling choice that's never actual? can you explain what you mean by choice without using that word?
Only what is actual is possible, agreed. It is actually possible to choose to not get annoyed about something when doing so would not change anything.
I don't think everyone is going to be able to detach from unhappiness. Most people choose not to.
You will inevitably on at-least some level feel some kind of suffering by the scratch on your car, but the point James is making here is that is very possible to consciously tone down your emotional reaction to it happening (aggression, misery, despair, disgust, fear, anxiety, tearfulness). My dad was a very aggressive driver, and frequently resorted to road rage, I never understood it, but it clearly had a negative effect on him even though it was something he could have stopped doing.
well, no, i just think it's meaningless to say that your dad could have stopped & james agreed, as we agree that only the actual is possible. if it is the case that your dad did not actually stop raging, then it was never possible for him to stop in those instants.
clearly, some people tone down the misery and some don't. to retroactively say that those who didn't could have done so is meaningless. it's like saying that my bed could have been a car, or that this tabby cat could have been black. read amy karofsky's 'a case for necessitarianism' and robert sapolsky's 'determined' if you're interested in why 'choice' is an incoherent non-explanation.
Best piece you’ve written in a while, James. Also, very timely for me. Thanks for sharing.