Think of a kid! They have minimum suffering which arises out of basic needs like food, sleep, etc. Our world today has prevalent suffering but this wasn’t the case always. Suffering is mostly constructed by human brain with the help of language and thoughts around pain. Think of animals! They have pains, sometimes, but they don’t suffer because they don’t have to think of past or future and just stay mindful, mostly always. They don’t have words like “suffering” and “pain” and “what would others think” or even a sense of self.

Most philosophers propose that shedding of the identity can remove all sufferings.

Today, major sufferings are a result of mental constructs rather something tangible. We can and definitely will solve them easily in a few thousand years which is a small period of time, on the scale of universe.

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Its not like we have only 2 choices. All of us live or all life goes extinct. If there is someone who was unlucky and preffers to cease to exist it is his choice, but why force the rest into extinction?

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It's not something we would usually say. "Arithmetic in base 10", maybe.

My objection, expressed more rudely than it should have been, was to placing "base 10 math" as a field of mathematics alongside algebra, etc.

Of course, if suffering far outweighs pleasures, most of us would prefer that life ends, this is objectively true as far as we can tell.

However, it doesnt address the axiomatic claim that if SOME have to suffer, then NONE should exist to risk this suffering in perpetuity, especially when nobody asked for it, we were all born without a chance to weigh the risk and reject or accept our births.

It may be a minority moral claim, but it is still a valid claim that requires proper counter.

How do you counter this argument? Majority rule?

Thank you. GTFT Rules:

>Start with cooperation: The first move is always cooperation, regardless of the opponent's move. This establishes goodwill and creates a cooperative environment.
>
>Reciprocate cooperation: If the opponent cooperates in the previous round, then reciprocate by cooperating in the current round.
>
>Forgive one-time defections: If the opponent defects in a single round, forgive the defection and continue to cooperate in the subsequent rounds.
>
>Punish repeated defections: If the opponent repeatedly defects, then retaliate by defecting in the current round, but then return to cooperation if the opponent cooperates in the subsequent round.
>
>Be clear: Communicate your strategy and intentions clearly to your opponent to avoid misunderstandings and build trust.

​

>Studies have shown that GTFT can outperform TFT in certain situations where the costs of defection are high, and there is a high likelihood of occasional mistakes or misunderstandings. GTFT can also help to prevent "death spirals" of mutual defection that can occur in TFT when both players defect repeatedly.

Every bullet except 5 in this list seems to boil down to the same, essentially utilitarian viewpoint. In order to come up with a plausible objection to the view as a whole I think one need only hold that morality as a whole is not (entirely) outcome-based. There are plenty of great theories of morality which reject utilitarianism and develop ways of thinking about morality more in line with our intuition that life ought not be completely extinguished. I also think that we don’t necessarily need to accept that a complete view of utilitarianism necessarily leads to the conclusion that life is inherently a bad thing. Suffering is without a doubt prevalent in the world, but there isn’t (and couldn’t possible be) any complete measure of suffering vs. pleasure that would be required to do the kind of utilitarian calculation required to follow this argument through to its conclusion. It may very well be that the pleasures of life outweigh the suffering.

It's not that deep. I'm saying the show does in fact contain themes reinforced through symbolism, plot points, real world references, etc. Like most shows do. It was written to convey certain themes. The Christianity stuff was done for stylistic reasons, but that does not imply that all of the writing was decided the same way. I don't know why you're so hung up on that idea. Literally no one involved has claimed that and its obvious to anyone who's watched the show knows that's not really the case.

i asked you to give me a specific example of what you called a disproportionate amount of influence over policy, and you asked me a question. you did not give me any example. if you can provide me an example to support your statement, we can continue the discussion. you have not done so. i'll respond when you do thanks

Uhm? Of course the show has a meaning for him. Just like anybody that has even heard about it will have attached some judgement.

But that's not what we were talking about?

If some element was added just exclusively for the purpose of impressing the viewer (as in: without any connection whatsoever with the plot or even just the worldbuilding) then it's meaningless.

I suppose even then it's not physically impossible to discuss how "by chance" a certain theme could still nevertheless be identified... but you can't avoid the elephant in the room that what is being depicted was completely posing.

Meanwhile people in this thread are not only doing that, but they are even starting from the presumption that something must be there, and then from that they work backwards into how it would be configured.

This reads less like an attack on the 'self' and more like a call to not be a shallow person who builds their sense of self by trying to fit in with others.

I also have little tolerance for people who pull Hitler into their blog post though when he has absolutely no place there. There are very few more decisive ways to say you lack confidence in your argument than to invoke Hitler.

>The reader is free to experience the story however they want, of course.

I think this is the crux of the matter. If an artist creates a work of art with one intention, but the majority of the audience receives it in a different manner -- one that is highly poignant to them -- at some point it does not matter as much socially what the author intended. What is received has far more impact.

Like it or not, Eva was the first effective introduction that many people have with important philosophical concepts. It gets the audience to engage with existential questions in a meaningful way, even if it does not do so in a manner as intellectually rigorous or with all of the historical attributions an academic may find important. To say that the series has no relationship to philosophy is simply very closed-minded.

That's wild.

The method they choose doesn't really matter though. As soon as somebodies' rights or their position in society are based on what race they are, that's racist by definition.

Death of the Author is just one more tool among many you should wield when analyzing a work. It is not the be-all and end-all. It can be misused. And this is one of the cases of misuse.

It's like when the author writes that the curtains are blue because he thinks it's a cool color. Then people theorize that the color "blue" symbolizes depression, and when the author comes and dispels this, they invalidate the author's intentions. This is not a good application of "Death of the Author".

It takes a lot of modesty to claim that the curtains are blue. You'd have to admit that when you personally interact with the work, you feel that the curtain's color reinforce the feeling of dread and depression in the story. Now that's a good application of "Death of the Author".

But to claim that the author symbolizes depression with the color blue would be objectively wrong. And people try to get around this by saying not that "the author symbolizes..." but rather that "the story symbolizes..." as if the story, a combination of words, had sentience and agency.

There are only two sentient agents. The author, and you (the reader). Any interpretation must be the product of the voluntary effort of one of these two agents.

This thread is a combination of bad applications of "Death of the Author". The scenes in Evangelion may be interpreted as materializations of complex philosophical concepts (just like any story), but it must be made clear that the author has no background on philosophy, did not write the story with philosophy in mind and did not consciously inject any philosophy in it. The reader is free to experience the story however they want, of course.

for how one could ever measure themselves, when one doing the measurement is the phenomenon of measurement itself.

Because ultimately it's an anime, not a philosophy essay

Evangelion is more entertaining than other series even if it is lacking in philosophical depth

Interestingly I saw a video recently where a group of black men and one white guy were blindfolded and they were trying to ask questions to figure out who was the odd one out. Ironically they failed and it turned out the white guy had been adopted by a black woman and grew up in Compton (a predominantly black community) so he "identified" with a lot of the aspects of life even those on the panel viewed as "the black experience"

Of course that's not to dismiss the very real difficulties that many people face but it does show how malleable our sense of culture can be. I don't know what the answer is these questions should be but I find it difficult to believe that it's healthy for anyone's sense of self worth to focus on how marginalized they have been. Absolutely, recognize the difficulties you have experienced but seek to grow and overcome them through action and connecting with other people who can provide support.

Racism sucks but putting up barriers to meaningful conversation isn't going to make things better

There is no point in seeing the "differences" if they are different stories with different events and different endings. There are also strong indications that the rebuild movies take place in a post-instrumentality world, the main one being the many statues scattered around the world.

I forgot to add “if we determine you look like or are associated with the least marginalized, you are the least marginalized. And Vice versa.”

Which is how my brown Morrocan Jewish friend became “white” in the eyes of his progressive coworkers for being Jewish. And how immigrant children of genocides got “white privilege.” And how a blonde-haired Palestinian became “brown”, but a Christian Arab from Syria became “white”.

It’s so fucking stupid. I even witnessed a movement to categorize black men as “white-adjacent” because so many black men were getting tired of the arbitrary rules and how often they’d get points for blackness but negative points for maleness. So a bunch of super-progressive WOC on TikTok, tired of men of their own race pushing back on the ideology, started on “men of color are white-adjacent due to their maleness.”

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That sounds about right. In any case, the very first point alone is basically racism. Any kind of opinion along the lines of "one race has more rights than another" is.

Does "Base 10 math" not make sense for mathematicians? Is that like saying "square circle" or something?

I thought it made sense but it very well could be one of those misunderstandings I have.

In practice, I’ve found the rules usually end up becoming:

1. There is a hierarchy of race, from most marginalized on top to least marginalized in bottom.

2. Culture from most marginalized is best; culture from least marginalized is bad and ought to be replaced or allowed to die out.

3. People from the top of the marginalization hierarchy have the right to participate in all genres and modes of expression. People from the bottom of the marginalization hierarchy must “stick to their own” while also acceding to all demands from point two.

4. You can only borrow from below you in the marginalization hierarchy.

5. Race trumps personal experience. A white person who grew up in poverty in a black neighborhood has no right to participate in hip hop or street slang; a black person who grew up in Brentwood has every right to adopt hip hop mannerisms and gangsta rap.

And so on.

I think Evangelion (and a bunch of other media) have a lot of potential for philosophical analysis, and while this is no means a bad start, there are more concepts that could be incorporated or be applied.

Come to think of it, we could even bring in some more Heidegger to talk about ready-to-hand vs present-at-hand in regards to piloting EVAs and (I can never quite remember what it's called) the totality of objects/tools/referential totality.

The EVAs appear both as present-at-hand objects observed passively from a distance that people study and ponder about, but to pilots after some exposure they appear ready-to-hand objects; not merely objects, but tools. One of the greatest revelations of the series comes from how the nature of EVAs as humanoid entities is revealed by a transition from ready-to-hand status to present-at-hand status when an EVA 'breaks' and part of its body is revealed. Like in Heidegger's example of the hammer, it is when the tool 'breaks' (becomes nonfunctional) that we begin to question/observe/postulate about what it is and how it functions; the answer of 'what is an EVA' only becomes relevant to the audience and the pilots when our perception of the EVA transitions from ready-to-hand to present-at-hand.

This can also be tied to referential totality, and the idea that all objects (and people) are connected to each other through a series of implied references. If there are EVAs, there must be someone who pilots them and there must be someone who makes them, tools, research, scientists, engineers, support staff, etc.; a complex web of human interaction that all connect to the EVA - and thus the EVAs serve as both physical manifestations of human interconnectedness and as a symbolic manifestation of human connectedness. That symbolism is of course only further enhanced if one takes into account the with the knowledge of what EVAs really are.

We could even talk about Phenomenology and the idea of the body schema, and the way physical objects can allow one to 'extend' their perception of their body. EVAs (like all 'mechs') are perfect example of this through the way LCL fluid and plug suits allow the pilots to synchronize with EVAs; to experience the EVA's body as their own. We could talk about the body-subject, the acknowledgement that the body is its own kind of conscious entity with instinctive desires, reactions, and own sense of rationality; the pilots train to instill in their bodies the (muscle) memory needed for piloting; to have their body which is a subject in itself to remember and react to the world around them. We could maybe even bring in AT fields as a product of the spiritual body's (or soul if you prefer) memories, actions, and reactions within the physical world; how the memories of pain and fear the spiritual body has suffered are used to create literal barriers for protection.

There's just so much opportunity.

Edit: I think I should clarify that I don't think you (or anyone) has to include all these other elements, just that I personally think they're interesting and would have been delighted to see them discussed.