>Rationality taken to its ultimate logical conclusion is nihilism, and the only escape is irrational hope.

I disagree. Consider this example:

If I see clouds gathering and droplets on the ground, I can rationally claim that "It is going to rain" (putting probability calculus and wild cards aside for a moment). If I would say "It is absolutely not going to rain and it will be sunny" you can see that one of these claims is more rational than the other.

If I see governments taking action against climate change, trying to prevent nuclear proliferation and working towards a stable world I could rationally claim that "We can have hope things will improve in the future".

However, if there is really no basis for such hope, than saying that "We can have hope things will turn out okay" is honestly just a baseless claim and a similar type of religious thinking, as handing your life over to the lord because he has a plan that will always turn out alright (which is a perfect example of a baseless claim, however edgy it might sound).

> This surreal scenario is likely to have been inspired by a letter Kafka had sent to his father, who was deeply disappointed by his son’s sensitive, curious and artistic nature. Kafka believed that he failed to fulfil his father’s expectations of what it means to be a man and, thus, that he appeared in his eye to be no better than an insect.

Glad to see someone mention this as the link between the story and his father is actually quite strong and appears generally underappreciated by most. For context, Kafka was heavily dependent on his father and was made painfully conscious of the fact. His father would frequently mock him as weak and sickly (Kafka ultimately dies of tuberculosis), and his father's assistance (he helped get Kafka a well-paid sinecure in the Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy which he later satirized in his work, most notably The Castle) must have been doubly humiliating. But interestingly enough this entire dynamic is reversed in The Metamorphsis -- there Gregor Samsa (nominally a parasite) is the breadwinner and his family have actually been sucking him dry. (Perhaps how Kafka felt about them emotionally?)

The first sentence of the Metamorphosis in German reads (emphasis mine):

> Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

(Or in English, "Gregor Samsa wakes up from a night of uneasy dreams only to find that he had been transformed into a gigantic insect")

Kafka's father used "Ungeziefer" to describe "parasites"/"blood-suckers", like a bed-bug, or a flea, and NOT a beetle or just any insect in general, which is how it's often incorrectly translated. (However, see Nabokov, LECTURES ON LITERATURE, pp258-60, where he argues (using entymology) that K is a large beetle). For evidence of this, see Kafka's use of it in Briefe an Milena (which is, incidentally, the only time he uses the word in those letters): "Von dem Riva-Ungeziefer bin ich noch zerbissen...", p.68: "I'm still covered with bites from the Riva-vermin..."). Thus in Die Verwandlung (Metamorphosis), Kafka becomes an Ungeziefer literally, which is how he felt his father perceived him figuratively. In Brief an den Vater, Kafka ventriloquizes his father thusly:

> Und den Kampf des Ungeziefers, weliches nicht nur sticht, sondern gleich auch zu seiner Lebenserhaltung das Blut saugt. ...das bist Du. > > You have put it into your head to live entirely off me. I admit that we fight each other, but there are two kinds of combat. The chivalrous combat, in which independent opponents pit their strength against each other, each on his own, each losing on his own, each winning on his own. And there is the combat of vermin, which not only sting but, on top of it, suck your blood in order to sustain their own life.... and that's what you are.

--pp118-119 in The Schocken Kafka Library edition

The etymology of the word is evocative yields further insight into how Kafka may've perceived himself, or felt others perceived him (e.g. the end of the Trial):

> From early modern German ungeziffer, Ungezieffer, a variant form of Middle High German ungezibere. These pertain to Old High German zebar (“sacrificial animal”) and hence originally meant “animals unsuitable for sacrifice”, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *tībrą (“offering, sacrifice, victim”). The word is rarely attested in medieval texts due to suppression of words reminiscent of heathen practices, but must have survived in lower registers.

--https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ungeziefer

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You can provide a rational basis for less than ultimate claims. Rationality taken to its ultimate logical conclusion is nihilism, and the only escape is irrational hope.

I really recommend Douglas Hofstadter's "I am a Strange Loop" (which is a quasi follow up to Godel, Escher, Bach). There is a section where he discussing how he handles the sudden passing of his wife, from a naturalistic view.

In his view (and my), who we are is the result of patterns in the brain. While this may seem rather unromantic and bleak, there is some comfort in it. As these patterns are formed through experience, the more shared experiences one has with another, the more someone understands another, the more those two people meld together. So if one of those persons passes on, much of their identiy, personality, and (really) self continues on in the other. To quote Hofstadter in the book:

"Along with Carol's desires, hopes and so on, her own personal sense of "I" is represented in my brain. Because I was so close to her, because I empathized so deeply with her, co-felt so many things with her, was so able to see things from inside her point of view when she spoke, whether it was her greatest joys or fondest hopes. Carol survives because her point of view survives...in my brain and those of others."

When we share stories and memories of lost loved ones, we aren't simply remembering them, we are breathing life into their very essence.

Very sorry for your loss. I hope maybe you can find some comfort in this.

> How would you know if those things don't match reality? You can't observe reality independently of these methods (experience, belief, logical conclusion, science, etc.).

We don't do it independently of our experiences. We do it by having new experiences. Our experiences are not truth, they can be inconsistent.

> All premises eventually go back to experiences we can all agree on. Even things as basic as "the world exists", "humans exist", etc. You can't transcend/escape that, even with science.

I think we're in a greement here. The issue is that you said this:

> a (obviously purely hypothetical) person who is 100% perfect at understanding and applying logic could always deduce the truth with perfect accuracy - without testing anything.

That doesn't follow unless you assume that your experiences are always true, and that any logical conclusion drawn from your experience then must be true.

Not really, you can provide a basis for most claims, or grounds on which you form a judgment. I feel like baseless hope ultimately collapses into some form of religious thinking, where you expect things to go well because you just believe it will happen, with no good reason.

'just because' really is the only reason though. It's the only reason for everything, ultimately. There is no rational basis for anything.

Stoicism is the way.

>It fundamentally comes down to this: If your belief, or your logical conclusion, or our shared experience does not match reality, then which is correct?

How would you know if those things don't match reality? You can't observe reality independently of these methods (experience, belief, logical conclusion, science, etc.).

>Experiences are subjective, even if you and I agree on something that does not mean it is true. And it is absolutely not the same as logically proving that it is true.

Fundamentally, experience is all we have. Even in science, everything boils down to an experience. You experience the data and the experimentation through your senses. Experience is inescapable, it is all we have, all we are.

> I said that every logical conclusion is based on premises, and those premises are things that people take for granted, not things that are proven true with logic.

All premises eventually go back to experiences we can all agree on. Even things as basic as "the world exists", "humans exist", etc. You can't transcend/escape that, even with science.

You can't leave your own subjective experience, that's ultimately the only way anyone can know anything. You wouldn't be able to know science works at all if you didn't experience it working.

They're not. That can be, but they are not fundamentally.

Moderator Said to post this here.

The origin of Being

I believe there is a point (a nothingness) before and after time, where there is ignorance. (A day when there was no yesterday or there will be no tomorrow.) This nothingness was before everything, is during everything, and will still be after everything. Everything has emerged from this nothingness, and everything will reunite in it. Religions assume that this creation happened intentionally, initiated by a God or a deity. However, this assumes that there was already "something" in existence at the time "everything" was created. I would argue that there is a (time) point before there was anything. Not our galaxy, not our universe, no Big Bang, none of the other universes, no God or deity. The "nothing" before the "being". So, how did "being" come into existence? Religions claim that a deity was always there - infinite. Now who or what is a "deity"? Does it have or is it consciousness? To create something, one must also be conscious of something. Therefore, God has or is consciousness. So, what is consciousness? Humans, animals, plants, and who knows what else possess it. My definition is: consciousness is the ability to gather and process information. This is the basic principle of every consciousness. By information, I mean "everything." Every atom consists of information that consists of further information. Information is infinite and has no beginning. But how did the information in the "nothingness" become something (e.g., consciousness)? There are several differences and few similarities between being and non-being. I will list only a few of them here. One similarity between the two is information. Of everything that does not exist, information has existed forever. The first difference between being and non-being that most likely comes to mind is time. Everything that does not exist only does not exist yet or no longer exists. Time or spacetime is a state in which 3-dimensional beings are located to be able to exist. To put it "simply," it is the "glue" that holds our 3-dimensional reality together. A substance in which 3-Dimensional beings exist like a fish in water. There is another difference between being and non-being. Everything that exists has an intention, a reason. Everything that is, is what it is because it is as it is. Non-being is pure information. Being is information that has an intention. Whoever creates something gives the information in the "nothingness" an intention.

Information/Time + Intention = Being

Therefore, the first consciousness must have emerged from an intention since there was only information before that.

But how could something arise from "nothingness"?

I’m not done with the discussion essay yet but I would like to hear what you think about that so far ?

I agree with you. Tho, I don’t like the word discriminate. I think you rather mean one should be pushed to do better. Discrimination means you’re hated for something you can’t do nothing about- like skin color, being a women etc.

Yea I think so. Well to the extent that one seeks a religion after childhood, you know after the stage we are indoctrinated by everything around us in early years.

As obviously there is the dynamic that kids will adopt predominant cultural beliefs as their own; which is why 99.9 percent of middle eastern children identify as Islam in adulthood (as example).

Though if one was neutral or ambivalent on the subject until adulthood and began looking for a “higher power”- I’m pretty sure they will seek a sect which allows them to be who they already are. Someone geared toward hateful thinking, vengeful punitive thinking would no doubt align to the more negative barbaric religions with a “cause”. I’m remembering all the westerners who subscribed to sharia law and negative forms of Islam through the past age of “terrorism”.

They found a “higher power” that gave them authority to be who they already were. Likewise a person largely compassionate/forgiving by nature would never accept such a “higher power”.

It's over a century since Metamorphosis was published. Yet Kafka’s work still resonates with the realities we face today. In this entertaining talk, acclaimed actor and director Steven Berkoff draws on his years of experience with Kafka’s work to provide a unique insight into how Kafka can help us to better understand the world and our place within it. Franz Kafka’s stories do not follow the usual pattern of building up the narrative into a climax; they start with the climax. In Metamorphosis, for instance, Gregor Samsa wakes up from a night of uneasy dreams only to find that he had been transformed into a gigantic insect. This surreal scenario is likely to have been inspired by a letter Kafka had sent to his father, who was deeply disappointed by his son’s sensitive, curious and artistic nature. Kafka believed that he failed to fulfil his father’s expectations of what it means to be a man and, thus, that he appeared in his eye to be no better than an insect. Kafka did not think in a linear, realistic fashion – reality to him was merely the trivial surface of life, merely a skin. In his work, the banalities of everyday life make way for the surreal, unconscious elements of our existence worth investigating, our absurd inner lives, our dreams.

So you believe that the religion that someone chooses to identify with is one that already closely aligns to the moral compass that they already have inside of them? Kinda like putting a label on your morals and beliefs?

How is introspection a mode of knowledge generation though?

Ok, but there must be some rational basis for this hope, otherwise, it just becomes religion. Honestly, this article just feels like a bit of abstract concepts, saying that we should have hope just 'because'.

So you can gain mathematical knowledge using only reason. Ok.

Anything else?

By reasoning about ideas. Mathematics is a great example—you can gain knowledge with nothing more than first principles and numbers.

> It is impossible to understand anything (including science) if logic does not work. So we can't really even have a discussion on whether or not logic works, all conversation necessarily assumes that logic works.

I didn't say logic doesn't work. I said that every logical conclusion is based on premises, and those premises are things that people take for granted, not things that are proven true with logic.

> No I don't. Eventually all premises boil down to direct, shared experiences that everyone (or almost everyone) can agree on. So does science. So does everything, really.

Experiences are subjective, even if you and I agree on something that does not mean it is true. And it is absolutely not the same as logically proving that it is true.

Logic can't get you out of the infinite regress. You appeal to a shared experience, which is not a logical argument. And even shared experience can be wrong. We have plenty of evidence that demonstrates how people's perception does not match reality. So how can you claim that a logical conclusion, that has not been shown to match reality is knowledge?

It fundamentally comes down to this: If your belief, or your logical conclusion, or our shared experience does not match reality, then which is correct?

Buddhism, as I understand it, considers suffering to be the inevitable result of desire. However, the Buddhist definition of desire may be more restrictive than the more broad or fundamental concepts of desire (thirst, hunger, warmth, etc), and refer to desires for things which exceed a person's basic needs.

Meanwhile, I think a person can have hope based on a desire that preceded their suffering (like a climber in your summit fever analogy), or they might just be trying to meet their basic needs for survival, which is suffering that has preceded their desire.

I'm not sure how hope relates to Buddhism, but in my mind, hope is tangential to desire and suffering, rather than the result or cause of them.

At the end of the day, it may boil down to semantics, because hope, suffering, and desire, can all be interpreted and connected in so many different ways.

That doesn’t answer my question. How do you gain knowledge by using only reason?

You are one denying that experiences are not experiments right?

I think if hope in the way the psychologist Snyder defined hope, as either a state or trait quality of looking favorably toward future goals. It is more active and operational than the conventional optimism normally attributed to hope. Being hopeful in this sense can be measured in a person in or out of crises. In fact it can be a way of reducing feelings of despair even in the face of hardship. If someone has hope, they can believe things may get better even in current gloomy circumstances.

I think a very important link in the chain of hope is self-efficacy, defined by the psychologist Bandura. Someone can have a hopeful outlook that their future may improve, but self-efficacy is a sense of competence and confidence that you can take the steps to achieve your goals. It’s a sense of agency associated I think with levels of esteem and self-assuredness that are in the same family of concepts we associate with human thriving, and mechanisms for people to move forward through and out of crises.