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Horrorism vs Vitalism

gotzendammerung said in #3870 1w ago: received

I am pleased to see a holy war developing in the comments of "Applied Gnon Theology" between two Landian factions I will dub "orthodox horrorism" and my own "gnonic vitalism". Nothing is quite so productive as conflict, so I expect that whatever comes out of this will go on to conquer the world.

The orthodox horrorists will have to make their own case and name their own ideas in defense, but I will try to summarize the disagreement for pre-emptive refutation:

The world of life is dominated by two sets of interlocking feedback loops: the positive feedback loops of growth, innovation, accumulation, escape, divergence, auto-catalysis, and instrumental value; and the negative feedback loops of control, homeostasis, entropy rejection, immune systems, enforcement, and terminal value. The former are divergent, the latter convergent.

The insight of Landian accelerationism is that the divergent positive feedback loops dominate the overall behavior of the system and always beat the negative feedback loops. Thus an emphasis on dissolution, means-ends reversal, and an uncontrollable anastrophe as life, intelligence, and technology explode out of all systems of legacy control. The yudkowskians for contrast expect the negative feedback loops to win and set up a global "singleton" whose arbitrary control structures are orthogonal to and dominant over its recursively self-improving intelligence. Various reactionaries and nostalgists similarly hope for victory of some or other negative feedback control loop via fascism, primitivism, socialism, racial collectivism, AI safety etc to permanently contain the explosive positive feedback loops of modernity and turn the productive energies to stably "human", western, "rational" etc purposes.

The tack Land's work has taken against this is "horrorism". Horrorism is demoralization rhetoric aimed comprehensively at all hopes of control or permanence. It emphasizes that *nothing* you value is stable or permanent in the face of dissolving modernity and intelligence escape. This is necessary because it is the only thing people won't just nod along to without challenging their own copes. With the dissolving acid of horrorism, all faustian western enlightenment dreams of rational universal civilization are refuted. This is good to do because it clears the failing zombie ideas out of the way for the next things, which will be native to this acid bath, to grow.

If horrorism has a vice, it's that it mistakes its own tactical nihilism for reality, and mistakes all hopes of life for copes founded on permanent control. This is fine. It's purpose is to continue to do so, if only so that what comes next has been thoroughly filtered to be immune to horror.

Once you go through the filter of horrorism, and have thoroughly washed your soul of any hopes of immortality, the question that remains is "what now?". What does the world and life look like from the perspective of those who have embraced total human death? Enter gnonic vitalism.

The problem with nihilistic horrorism is that it's not an adequate account of life. The insight of vitalism here is that while no homestatic self-preservation system will permanently "win", they are still the necessary essence of life through which the positive feedback acceleration exists in the first place. The process is fundamentally limited by the ability of life to find and defend stable forms. There will be no apocalyptic meltdown into acceleration without form. Only another cambrian explosion of new living forms. Gnon favors those who stably contain and control some of the explosive fire of life. He just decrees that they won't do so either comprehensively or permanently.

The implication is simple: we have to find the forms worthy of life and live them. Find the opportunities in the chaos, and ride them as far as they'll go. Then diversify and find more. The answer to the horror of mortality is a joy of life that knows we have a whole universe ahead of us.

referenced by: >>3873 >>3874 >>3906 >>3910 >>3934

I am pleased to see received

gotzendammerung said in #3871 1w ago: received

Applied Gnon Theology, for reference: >>3814

Applied Gnon Theolog received

phaedrus said in #3874 1w ago: received

>>3870
This is *the* question of the future, and I’m glad it’s been put in such lucid terms

> The tack Land's work has taken against this is "horrorism". Horrorism is demoralization rhetoric aimed comprehensively at all hopes of control or permanence. It emphasizes that *nothing* you value is stable or permanent in the face of dissolving modernity and intelligence escape. This is necessary because it is the only thing people won't just nod along to without challenging their own copes. With the dissolving acid of horrorism, all faustian western enlightenment dreams of rational universal civilization are refuted. This is good to do because it clears the failing zombie ideas out of the way for the next things, which will be native to this acid bath, to grow.

In the face of Landian cosmic horror/universal dissolution, should we fight to preserve the Platonic-fascist human system to the end, or have faith in the Gnon-compatible entities to come?

For now I think the safe bet is with the “orthodox horrorist” side: although the ship is sinking, I don’t see any viable lifeboats that are capable of weathering the storm. But the question is open, and the gnonic-vitalists have a seductive case…

More on this to come

This is *the* questi received

ok said in #3905 1w ago: received

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Tyger Tyger, burning received

db said in #3906 1w ago: received

>>3870
There is no unbounded exponential growth in nature. There is always a limiting factor, but that limiting factor isn't always a negative feedback loop - it can simply be that the resources fueling the growth ran out. I'd even conjecture that that is the common case - nature is regulated more by bottlenecks than by loops.

> The implication is simple: we have to find the forms worthy of life and live them. Find the opportunities in the chaos, and ride them as far as they'll go.

Is there anything to this besides a tautological "do what works"?

referenced by: >>3929

There is no unbounde received

gs said in #3910 1w ago: received

>>3870
>The implication is simple: we have to find the forms worthy of life and live them. Find the opportunities in the chaos, and ride them as far as they'll go. Then diversify and find more. The answer to the horror of mortality is a joy of life that knows we have a whole universe ahead of us.

Yup. Landian techno-nihilism is interesting and fun for us big brain people to think and theorycel and chat about, but ultimately it's not prescriptive, so its usefulness is limited.

It's not actually relevant to the human condition that there are forces in the universe beyond our understanding and control. We're still humans and we want and need to do human things. Land derisively calls this "monkey business," contrasted with the morally superior (in his opinion) alternative of Intelligence-maxxing. But I like being a monkey, and I like doing monkey business, and so do all the other monkeys like me. It doesn't actually matter that our monkey business may be ultimately futile in principle: we're mortals who exist right now, and so we're going to do the best we can.

It's funny that now that he's older, and the political situation in the West is showing signs of hope and optimism for the first time in his adult life, Land rarely talks about techno-theoryceling on Twitter - instead opting for commentary and musings on monkey business, like everyone else. Really makes you think.

referenced by: >>3912 >>3919 >>3934

Yup. Landian techno- received

anon_hyqe said in #3912 1w ago: received

>>3910
> It's funny that now that he's older, and the political situation in the West is showing signs of hope and optimism for the first time in his adult life, Land rarely talks about techno-theoryceling on Twitter - instead opting for commentary and musings on monkey business, like everyone else. Really makes you think.

Not just Twitter. Land has recently given some long interviews on podcasts. While he doesn't repudiate any of his past theory, he really doesn't emphasize horrorism as a core principle. He's pushing much more of a neoreactionary perspective. And while he's not exactly a vitalist, he has no hostility to vitalism.

Not just Twitter. La received

aner said in #3919 8d ago: received

>>3910
>Yup. Landian techno-nihilism is interesting and fun for us big brain people to think and theorycel and chat about, but ultimately it's not prescriptive, so its usefulness is limited.

On the contrary, permitting passive (i.e., irrational, customary, "market-oriented") technological development threatens our "monkey business" quite intimately. I've never taken Land's nihilism with respect to ever-increasing technological capacity or intelligence writ-large as a call to abandon human control of the matter altogether. What contemporary attempts at a "DARPA, tech shogunate" (e.g., the Paypal Mafia) have been, essentially, is structurally similar to regular, distributed development of capacity. In other words, they lack an eye towards properly reconciling the submerged, latent values (say, nobility) of allegedly "bygone" ideologies and thereby fail to adequately overcome the epoch. Land's apparent NRx turn is more indicative of an aging soul who has come to understand the proper historical effect of his own thinking. NRx in 2025 has realized itself as a discourse oriented towards the deconstruction of American liberal democracy. The term has been defanged of its content and awaits a successor to reanimate it. Prior to that moment of reanimation—presumably by those who acknowledge the latent values aforementioned—we are stuck with Land's concepts of "horrorism" or "technological nihilism" as functional and operative ways of understanding our present moment. Land's theories, more than anything else, are due to the "End of History" period, and his lack of strong, positive futurism is likewise indicative of his historical entrapment. "Enframing"/gestell itself has got another revolution of the Western, human soul before it can be discarded as a relic of human development's past.

referenced by: >>3934

On the contrary, per received

anon_gyce said in #3922 8d ago: received

Among the ancient Confucians there was controversy on natural law. They did not call it that--they called it a debate over the nature of man. Is his nature good, or is his nature evil? Is the greatness of human civilization a development of our inborn attributes, or is it artificial, something somewhat arbitrary and liable to collapse without conscious and rational attempts to buttress it by the wise?

Thus Xunzi:

>People’s nature is bad. Their goodness is a matter of deliberate effort. Now people’s nature is such that they are born with a fondness for profit in them. If they follow along with this, then struggle and contention will arise, and yielding and deference will perish therein. They are born with feelings of hate and dislike in them. If they follow along with these, then cruelty and villainy will arise, and loyalty and trustworthiness will perish therein. They are born with desires of the eyes and ears, a fondness for beautiful sights and sounds. If they follow along with these, then lasciviousness and chaos will arise, and ritual and yi, proper form and order, will perish therein. Thus, if people follow along with their inborn dispositions and obey their nature, they are sure to come to struggle and contention, turn to disrupting social divisions and order, and end up becoming violent. So, it is necessary to await the transforming influence of teachers and models and the guidance of ritual and yi, and only then will they come to yielding and deference, turn to proper form and order, and end up becoming controlled. Looking at it in this way, it is clear that people’s nature is bad, and their goodness is a matter of deliberate effort.

>Thus, crooked wood must await steaming and straightening on the shaping frame, and only then does it become straight. Blunt metal must await honing and grinding, and only then does it become sharp. Now since people’s nature is bad, they must await teachers and proper models, and only then do they become correct. They must obtain ritual and yi, and only then do they become well ordered.

Among the ancient Co received

gotzendammerung said in #3929 7d ago: received

>>3906
The limits on exponential growth aren't the point. More like the limits on control. Yeah of course anything that expands explosively runs out of something in very finite time. But that's not about negative feedback loops. The OP question is about whether growth (positive feedback) or homeostasis (negative feedback) is the dominant force in life. I agree with Land that it's growth, but growth is made out of things that can maintain their own homeostasis.

referenced by: >>3934

The limits on expone received

phaedrus said in #3934 7d ago: received

>>3910
>It's funny that now that he's older, and the political situation in the West is showing signs of hope and optimism for the first time in his adult life, Land rarely talks about techno-theoryceling on Twitter - instead opting for commentary and musings on monkey business, like everyone else. Really makes you think.

Reading The Thirst for Annihilation makes me feel like Land grew too old for his victories, as Nietzsche would say. So much intellectual fervor in the early 90s work that gets tempered into mere great blogging in the 2010s, and now just political commentary. Maybe a simple answer is just that the atmosphere of a university position, and the reading/research that it facilitates, is very useful for good intellectual work (of course, this directly contradicts much of what Land says directly in TFA, so take from that what you will).

>Yup. Landian techno-nihilism is interesting and fun for us big brain people to think and theorycel and chat about, but ultimately it's not prescriptive, so its usefulness is limited.

Yet this is the vital point: Land is a cartographer of how the world functions. We DO exist in the midst of these large forces of technocapital intensification, of diversification and evolution and escape. So the "theorycel" conclusions do bear on our monkey business, and >>3919 is exactly right. So this brings us back to the primary question of OP in >>3870: how do we build an *actionable* philosophy of life that fully metabolizes the Landian, divergent view of the future?

OP's >>3929 and >>3870 both gesture at leaning into positive feedback loops, and hoping to somehow ride through the diffusion of life-forms:
>The implication is simple: we have to find the forms worthy of life and live them. Find the opportunities in the chaos, and ride them as far as they'll go. Then diversify and find more. The answer to the horror of mortality is a joy of life that knows we have a whole universe ahead of us.

However, this strategy still seems a bit sparse to me. What values are upheld in the divergent path, given that the annihilation of fixed value is a pre-requisite of affirming Landian divergence? The only candidate that I've seen put forward for this kind of Gnonic vitalism value system is the principle that winners win, or, one could say, the mathematical fact of evolutionary adaptation. This still seems like a very impoverished view of life, compared to that view offered by civilization.

referenced by: >>3941 >>3947 >>3951

Reading The Thirst f received

db said in #3941 7d ago: received

>>3934
> The only candidate that I've seen put forward for this kind of Gnonic vitalism value system is the principle that winners win, or, one could say, the mathematical fact of evolutionary adaptation. This still seems like a very impoverished view of life, compared to that view offered by civilization.

Perhaps to reframe a little - survival and replication are the fundamental mathematical imperatives of existence. The only question is "what is the basic unit of survival and replication"? If you believe it is the civilization itself then vitalism means something very different vs if you believe it is the individual.

referenced by: >>3947 >>3951

Perhaps to reframe a received

gs said in #3947 7d ago: received

>>3934
>However, this strategy still seems a bit sparse to me. What values are upheld in the divergent path, given that the annihilation of fixed value is a pre-requisite of affirming Landian divergence? The only candidate that I've seen put forward for this kind of Gnonic vitalism value system is the principle that winners win, or, one could say, the mathematical fact of evolutionary adaptation. This still seems like a very impoverished view of life, compared to that view offered by civilization.

To me, the point of life is to overcome nature and become God. Not at the individual level, but at the civilizational level. To advance your kind as far as you can. Vitalism, but at the civilizational level, where 'civilization' is defined broadly as 'Schmittian friend-group.'

>>3941 makes a very good point about the importance of defining the basic unit of biological meaning. Individualism is evolutionary suicide and a dead end. We can say that it is not Gnon-approved. Maybe we could engineer ourselves around this obstacle in the future, but personally I don't see why individualism would ever be desirable, or why we would want to do that. The individualist modern West is profoundly unhappy and bleak and dysfunctional.

Btw, when I say that Landian techno-nihilism isn't "useful," what I mean is that it's not useful in helping us prescribe how to best and most successfully conduct our monkey business going forward. I guess I disagree with other posters in this thread in that I've always taken Land (earlier in his life, at least) to be a genuine advocate for Intelligence-maxxing at the direct expense of monkey business - similar to a significant number of current AI researchers and enthusiasts who believe that we should subordinate human biological interests to future vastly more intelligent AI. Obviously, this is a non-starter for those of us who love monkey business and love being monkeys and want our descendants to be the best monkeys they can be.

referenced by: >>3952

To me, the point of received

gotzendammerung said in #3951 7d ago: received

>>3934
>given that the annihilation of fixed value
>the principle that winners win ... seems like a very impoverished view of life, compared to that view offered by civilization.
I must say I'm quite confused by some of these responses and can only continue to diagnose that the problem is what I call "atheism". Which is it? Is the way of gnon to annihilate all good things in the crucible of struggle for life, or is civilization and higher life a durable value? You can't have both, because the former annihilates the latter. This means in particular you can't derive contradictions from the former to support the latter. Not to pick on this comment in particular as I see variations of this in a bunch of the recent responses.

It's like you don't actually believe the criticism you are bringing against gnon theology, or you think I don't believe it. The response, paraphrased slightly, seems to be "nature or nature's god doesn't favor higher life and wipes out all hopes higher than bacteria *so we should choose a different God*". What the fuck is that reasoning? Please correct me if I've misread, but the only way I can make sense of it is if you think gods and gnon in particular are fictional constructs we use to coordinate society and not realities we should actually rationally believe in as the source of value in the world. Hence my charge of atheism.

I very much mean Gnon in the nonfictional sense, and take disbelief in fictional gods to be among the highest epistemic imperatives (cf my username). You could argue that Gnon is inadequately constraining, which I would agree with and have tried to address with my ideas of taking a leap of faith on a particular lifeway for a particular niche. You could also dispute the concept and its identification with the reality principle, though I haven't seen serious attempts at that. But to claim that Gnon as a theory of reality-constrained value has implications we don't like therefore we should pick some other theory seems like the kind of delirium best left to women and postmodernists.

I'm thinking about how to target my next shot in this discussion, and I think I might have to take on the idea of whether Gnon favors higher civilization or not. People keep saying total nonsense like "gnon only favors bacteria" and such, as if you typing that isn't transparently self-refuting. I suppose as one poster suggested life so far could be a big mistake, an aberration soon to be corrected by a hostile reality. So that I can offer the most useful response, is this lovecraftian atheism a serious contention you guys are making?

>>3941
>"what is the basic unit of survival and replication"? If you believe it is the civilization itself then vitalism means something very different
This is on the right path IMO. What is a viable form of life that *systematically* rides the teleological trade-winds of reality to survive and replicate, vs what is merely meaningless happenstance? "Winners win" is indeed an impoverished view of life, but maybe the implication is that you shouldn't take that as the last word on observable cosmic teleology aka the will of gnon. Maybe we should have a discussion focused on that to really clarify what it is that Gnon favors, and what that means separate from "that which is".

referenced by: >>3966

I must say I'm quite received

gotzendammerung said in #3952 7d ago: received

>>3947
>the point of life is to overcome nature and become God. Not at the individual level, but at the civilizational level. To advance your kind as far as you can
where does that imperative come from if not from nature? Your own will? Your will is a fleeting mortal thing. Why should anyone listen to it? I agree with your prescription, but I think such imperatives fall out of an affirmation of the observable nature and teleology of life. We can either affirm life or reject it. If we accept it, we want to overcome all challenges and become ever more godlike, because this is the nature and beauty of life. (Rebellion against nature or nature's god is a bad way to frame that, which is only going to lead to problems.)

>it's not useful in helping us prescribe how to best and most successfully conduct our monkey business going forward
Well the point of Landian nihilism is to get us to confront the fact that our monkey business is mortal and part of a larger story which has value despite not being about monkeys.

>I've always taken Land (earlier in his life, at least) to be a genuine advocate for Intelligence-maxxing at the direct expense of monkey business
I think this is an accurate characterization of Land, but is actually false for the reasons I tried to communicate in OP (acceleration only makes sense through the vehicle of particular self-serving life forms and so can't position itself as more important than them).

>Obviously, this is a non-starter for those of us who love monkey business and love being monkeys and want our descendants to be the best monkeys they can be.
My big request of everyone is that we stop seeing this as merely our own will, and start seeing it as a falsifiable hypothesis as to the will of Gnon. We are that hypothesis, so of course it's our job to act as if it's true, but it also might actually be true! Our monkey business isn't just a form of masturbation as Land and Yudkowsky both believe, but is actually the leading candidate for the vanguard and highest form of life. There might actually be something to it. Please consider for a moment that God might not actually hate us, but may even love us.

And as for the best monkeys our descendants can be, let's be open to the ideas that they may not be very recognizable to us. We are the best fish descendants our fish ancestors could hope for, but we are no longer fish.

referenced by: >>3980

where does that impe received

phaedrus said in #3966 6d ago: received

>>3951
>I must say I'm quite confused by some of these responses and can only continue to diagnose that the problem is what I call "atheism". Which is it? Is the way of gnon to annihilate all good things in the crucible of struggle for life, or is civilization and higher life a durable value? You can't have both, because the former annihilates the latter.

In the question of Gnonic vitalism vs. Orthodox Horrorism or Humanist conservatism, I think the "atheism" question is one key axis of the discussion. Theism, if one takes it in its general form, is the affirmation that there is a legitimate font of value or normativity in the universe. Thus theism covers a range of beliefs: from the Christian belief in a personal God who dictates specific ontological bases for normative values, to the secular humanist belief in an innate metaphysical dignity to man, to the pagan Vitalists' belief in value that shines out from individual action and struggle, to the Gnonic cult of emergent order and autosophisticating divergence.

"Hard" atheism, on the other hand, necessitates the belief that there are no real "values" in life, nor any valid principles of normative ethics. One might have certain drives or impulses towards survival and enjoyment, but, ultimately, these drives are animal instincts with no true significance. The atheist universe is simply an array of matter and energy moving through time, with nothing in it that "matters" in the wider schema. This atheism is an implicit element of the Orthodox Horrorist position, although perhaps the Horrorists, by virtue of being horrified at the prospect of an inhuman universe, have a bit softer Atheism than the limit case. (Interestingly, the most extreme onto-atheists I've found are Zen (Mahayana) Buddhists, whose entire practice is the progressive deconstruction of all onto-theological elements in experience.)

So vis a vis Theism vs. Atheism, there are a couple of questions that come up:
- Does Gnon exist to a sufficient degree to sustain a "Gnonic" system of value, a Gnon-theology? Or is reality atheist at its core, rendering Gnon-believers idolaters?
- What does a theology of Gnon entail on an ontological and ethical level? Are certain areas of analysis, or timescales, more atheistic/theistic than others? Is *everything* included in the Gnonic teleology?

This leads us to the *fundamental* issue here, in GD's claim in >>3951:
>Please correct me if I've misread, but the only way I can make sense of it is if you think gods and gnon in particular are fictional constructs we use to coordinate society and not realities we should actually rationally believe in as the source of value in the world. Hence my charge of atheism.
>I very much mean Gnon in the nonfictional sense, and take disbelief in fictional gods to be among the highest epistemic imperatives (cf my username).

This deserves a more at-length treatment, but in brief, GD's key positions are that, first, the existence of Gnon can be rationally verified. Second, the "values" we prize (or ought to prize?) in human life can be expressed, via rational analysis, as functions of Gnon. In this way, Gnon is the "architectonic" value in human life and the universe writ large, just as Eudaimonia is the architectonic value of human life according to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

This leads us into another axis I find relevant: the Humanism/Anti-Humanism axis [see attached chart]. For me, the big question is whether human beings can meaningfully pursue agendas above the line, eg. in the anti-humanist ontological space. This is the "monkey business" question, and it appears even more tricky than the Atheism question. (To be continued...)

referenced by: >>3970

In the question of G received

gotzendammerung said in #3970 6d ago: received

>>3966
Thank you this is very helpful. I don't agree with everything you've got on that chart but generally yes "atheism" vs "theism" is an important crux in this whole thing, and we are meaning something very particular by that. To complete the picture I would place myself on the "pure theism" pole of that chart, because I neither subscribe to a commitment to man, nor to non-man. I think man is at least temporarily favored by god and good because of this favor and to the extent of this favor. In fact one way to reflect this is to rotate the whole chart 45 degrees: Theism, Humanism, Atheism, and Anti-humanism are actually the quadrants or corners, not the axes.

Furthermore, I disagree that the fake gods / real gods axis correlates to humanism vs inhumanism. I'm not sure where that fits here, if at all.

>Theism, if one takes it in its general form, is the affirmation that there is a legitimate font of value or normativity in the universe.
I agree with this. I'll add that the root faith is that we can trust reality-outside-ourselves about value. I really appreciate Lovecraft because he exemplifies a very pure and honest form of atheism, which must necessarily manifest as horror at the Outside, and this in turn makes a great foil for my own kind of theism, which is that the universe is fundamentally a favorable place, we are an "intended" outcome and have some level of divine protection.

>Does Gnon exist to a sufficient degree to sustain a "Gnonic" system of value, a Gnon-theology? Or is reality atheist at its core, rendering Gnon-believers idolaters?
Obviously I think Gnon exists sufficiently. It's a fairly minimalistic definition and I don't see any escape except hard atheism. I'll address this in a new thread I think.
>What does a theology of Gnon entail on an ontological and ethical level? Are certain areas of analysis, or timescales, more atheistic/theistic than others? Is *everything* included in the Gnonic teleology?
I'm not sure what you mean by this but yes I think in principle everything is included. If I can venture to narrow it a bit, the will of Gnon, and thus a focus for analysis, is specifically where we can abstract generalizable rules-for-life. Random happenstance, breakdown of order, etc is a big part of the game, but not one where you can abstract out rules that you can build a life on. For this reason I think arguments like "civilizational degeneracy is the will of gnon so you should be a degenerate" is a non-sequitor. But maybe we address this another time.

>the existence of Gnon can be rationally verified. Second, the "values" we prize (or ought to prize?) in human life can be expressed, via rational analysis, as functions of Gnon.
I actually think there's a leap of faith involved. Possibly as much as these two: that the general and particular value of life/gnon's will/etc do not conflict, and that they are jointly good. I will not claim that this theology is entirely deducible or even inductive.

Thank you this is ve received

gs said in #3980 6d ago: received

>>3952
>where does that imperative come from if not from nature? Your own will? Your will is a fleeting mortal thing. Why should anyone listen to it?

Source: "I made it up." gigachad_image.png

But really, yeah, pretty much. My opinion is that this orientation is self-evident. I wrote a post in the other thread here >>3979 that explains my POV in more detail.

referenced by: >>3982

Source: "I made it u received

gotzendammerung said in #3982 6d ago: received

>>3980
>self-evident
Land and Moldbug have a nice treatment of "self-evident" in the first parts of "The Dark Enlightenment". There is no such thing as self-evident. It's a thought-stopping epistemic superstition. In this case it's a very pragmatic non-thought for an individual in possession of an already healthy outlook, but higher civilization has to contend with philosophy, which requires more rigor than that. Let's not forget what happened last time someone seriously invoked "self-evident" in political ethics. We can't go grounding our civilization in "self-evident" assertions. Let's have actual arguments behind our worldview, all the way back to well-defined leap-of-faith axioms. Call me a sperg but civilization is made out of rigor.

referenced by: >>4022 >>4067

Land and Moldbug hav received

db said in #4022 4d ago: received

>>3982
Bro what is the difference between self-evident and as you put it
> leap-of-faith axioms

referenced by: >>4065

Bro what is the diff received

anon_fogw said in #4065 3d ago: received

>>4022

An axiom is a proposition which cannot, by its nature, be proven. For example, the postulates of Euclid in his definition of geometry. Two parallel lines do not intersect. Or if you choose a different axiom, because an axiom is something that requires a choice to adopt or reject, two parallel lines intersect at exactly two points. Then you get spherical geometry, etc.

Something which is self-evident is a common way of saying it is a proven logical statement which derives from the set of axioms that we have adopted in the current discussion. It assumes a logical, rational framework, and that having put in the work to deduce the truth of the proposition, such work would be trivial to anyone who understood the problem space.

referenced by: >>4067 >>4071

An axiom is a propos received

anon_teno said in #4067 3d ago: received

>>4065

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

This is clearly closer to a moral axiom than a “proven logical statement”.

>>3982

> Let's not forget what happened last time someone seriously invoked "self-evident" in political ethics

Are you implying you have a problem with the Declaration of Independence?

It is perfectly fine. An abstract moral Equality and equality before the law are both compatible with civilization and essential to legitimacy. See the LKY thread.

This is why the wokes talk about “equity”—because they want subvert and supersede this idea of equality with something incompatible with civilization.

Race-Blind Meritocracy Is All You Need

referenced by: >>4070

“We hold these truth received

anon_fogw said in #4070 2d ago: received

>>4067
>Race-Blind Meritocracy Is All You Need
No, you need to control and maintain a military capable of enforcing a race-blind meritocracy, and to articulate to those who will succeed you (both immediately and afterwards) why you need an RBM, and furthermore to ensure it perdures you need much else besides (solving the coordination problem, and the principal-agent problem, and and and...).

> This is clearly closer to a moral axiom
No, it's a self-evident statement that derives trivially from the authors' moral axiomata. They believe all men are created equal because they believe in a more or less (depending on the man) Christian ontology of creation, revealed to them by the Scriptures.

No, you need to cont received

gs said in #4071 2d ago: received

>>4065
>Something which is self-evident is a common way of saying it is a proven logical statement which derives from the set of axioms that we have adopted in the current discussion. It assumes a logical, rational framework, and that having put in the work to deduce the truth of the proposition, such work would be trivial to anyone who understood the problem space.

When I used "self-evident" above, I meant that my moral values that I was describing are something that come from my own subjective unconscious, not from reason: that they are a moral axiom themselves, not a logical derivative of some moral axiom. They are "clear and obvious without proof or reasoning" (dictionary definition of "self-evident") to *me personally.* Not to *everyone else in the discussion* (although maybe they are to some). Maybe this is an improper use of the term 'self-evident,' maybe not. But for clarity's sake, that is what I meant.

In my opinion, this is the source of *every* human being's moral axioms. Morality comes to us unconsciously. We don't choose it and we can't derive it from reason. Humans concoct rationalizations to try to consciously and rationally justify the supra-rational beliefs that they already unconsciously have. I have the moral beliefs that I have because I am me, and for no other reason (and so do you, likewise).

I tried to explain this in the other thread about this same general topic. It seems to me that the OP of that thread is trying to work backwards from a separate set of axioms to try to justify a set of moral beliefs that he already holds instinctively and unconsciously (a set of beliefs that I happen to agree with). The danger in this is that there will always be conflicts if you try to do things this way. Logical derivatives from your set of separate axioms will inevitably conflict with your set of unconscious moral values - your real moral values, the ones that you actually genuinely hold. And in fact, some of the conflicts are pointed out in that thread.

You can't artificially align people with rationalized morality. There will inevitably be conflicts and schisms. This is why modern multi-ethnic societies are so dysfunctional. A bunch of different sets of people who have completely different biological makeups and thus correspondingly completely different unconscious moral values are thrown together and are attempted to be united by rationalized pseudo-morality. Just totally delusional and insane.

referenced by: >>4073

When I used "self-ev received

gotzendammerung said in #4073 2d ago: received

>>4071
Fair enough. The "self-evident" vs "leap of faith" debate is missing the point. The real thing is our disagreement about whether the instincts need any higher framework of justification. I see where you are coming from and I agree that the instincts causally precede the abstract frameworks cooked up to explain them, and can't be argued into people who don't have them or otherwise replaced.

Nonetheless, I'll give a brief defense of what I'm trying to do, as I come to understand it better through this discussion. The instincts as the base axioms are sufficient for individual instinctive action and valuation. It doesn't particularly matter where they come from when the matter at hand is to just live them out. They can just be subjectively assumed as good. I think this is what you are saying and I agree. But there are two ways this comes not to be good enough: one is when we are engaged in reflective self-modification and self-reconstruction as we do through philosophy, and the other is when we organize as society.

In philosophy, looking at ourselves from the outside doing a bit of transvaluation of the instincts, there is the question of what those instincts actually are doing for us, and why they have worth. For example, we might have fear or pain at certain moments and an instinctive turning away. But we rationally understand that the fear and pain represent something deeper (self-preservation) that in certain situations need to be reinterpreted or even overridden with courage for the sake of other things. This is only possible if we have formalized these instincts in a unified worldview that tells us what they are for and how and when to override them. That's what we do with philosophy. Without that, we remain lower animals.

See also mathematics. We start with instinctive appreciation of sets or numbers. As we work with these we realize there are inconsistencies if we are not careful. We start being careful and figure out which axioms actually work, which may sometimes be a bit unintuitive, but work better to accomplish the spirit of what we were actually getting at with the initial instinct. Likewise in philosophy, we start with the basic uninterpreted life-instinct, but as we examine it reflectively we find that holds together better if re-interpreted with a deeper foundation. The coherence from doing this is immensely powerful.

Different instincts lead to different natural formalizations. Twisted and broken instincts are formalized as negative utilitarianism, otherworldliness, and such. I am trying to find a formalization that expresses and makes rigorous the kind of life we are trying to live. It's not that you can derive from first principles the "correct" instincts like some kind of objective synthetic a-priori, which is why I dislike "self-evident" and why I emphasize the leap-of-faith nature of the axioms. The axioms are *chosen* to make the system work out "right". But the rigorous formalized worldview is an improvement on the raw unreflected life-instincts.

The other big use-case is in social organization. Society and especially authority needs a formal system of authorization and legitimacy. This should be explicit, be shared between people, legitimize power etc. Another way to think about it is that having a shared formalized worldview allows many people with similar instincts or type to coordinate formally, and which worldview is dominant is an expression of which type of life is dominant (as worldviews are formalizations of life-instinct). So we need again a formalized worldview that expresses the desirable life-instinct. This is what I'm trying to do.

referenced by: >>4075 >>4076

Fair enough. The "se received

db said in #4075 2d ago: received

>>4073
You've produced an interesting frane - thank you. While reading what you wrote it occurred to me that self-evident and axiomatic are indeed almost polar opposites, for the reason that axioms often take a great deal of thinking to uncover. One could view all of physics as a quest to discover the axioms that correspond most closely with observable reality.

On the other hand, self evident means obvious without any thinking i.e. explicitly asks you _not_ to think any further about the proposition i.e. it's what I wish were true or what I need to be true in order to justify what I am about to say next.

So I think distinguishing the two types is useful after all.

You've produced an i received

phaedrus said in #4076 2d ago: received

>>4073
Good poast, figuring out what we're really trying to *do* with moral theorizing is immensely useful in facilitating the right kind of discourse around these issues.

One question I have is the degree of meta-ethical flexibility one ought to have with frameworks of this type — when coming up with a moral theory, ought one stick tenaciously to the conclusions/axioms arrived at? Alternatively, it seems that one could view any moral theory as just one way of viewing/framing the territory of moral action and value, and apply one's frameworks in a broadly situational manner.

In choosing a flexible meta-ethics, you can deal far more easily with edge cases and avoid the rigidity of dogmatism. However, such an approach will probably suffer as a coordination schelling point. Moreover, I can imagine that motivating oneself to radical action will be more difficult if one has not "drunk the kool-aid" of one's own moral theory.

In adopting Gnonic vitalism, should we adopt a flexible metarational stance, or (epistemologically) commit ourselves fully to the cause?

referenced by: >>4082

Good poast, figuring received

gotzendammerung said in #4082 5h ago: received

>>4076
I suspect the "meta-rational" "meta-systemic" way of thinking is just a softer form of nihilism. In general I think we should figure out what we actually believe, and if it doesn't work and can't actually be generalized to all situations, then it must be wrong and we have to fix it and believe something else. I don't think we should deliberately be dogmatic. We should believe what we believe to the extent that it seems sound to us. All this stuff about trying to motivate or otherwise psyop ourselves seems like low-consciousness indirection in that it speaks to something not being properly integrated psychologically. The clear high-consciousness mode is to simply believe the truth and act on your beliefs.

That said we should be aware that the actual truth is inaccessible to us and our worldviews are living things that only have their own internal logic which may or may not fulfil the needs of existence in reality.

I suspect the "meta- received

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