š¾ Archived View for idiomdrottning.org āŗ benatar captured on 2024-08-18 at 19:30:18. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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I just canāt get behind this:
Benatarās asymmetry argument
I disagree so much that Iām grateful for him putting it in such stark terms so that we can clearly see how wack it is:
1. the presence of pain is bad;
2. the presence of pleasure is good;
3. the absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone;
4. the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.
The first statement is an overreach. A liāl bit of pain can be a good thing. Go see the original Inside Out. We humans use pain or pleasure to navigate reality. If everything was pleasure we wouldnāt be able to do that. Itād be like trying to touch type if every key felt like an f. Weād just be rolling around like a giggling mass of broken bones. (Arguably that's what we're already doing according to Ligotti.)
But letās put a liāl cenobite pin in that for now and for argumentās sake take a look at the third and fourth statements as if the first two were both true:
They contradict each other, which Iām hardly the first to point out (it's why it's called an "asymmetry" in the first place). If I fall into a hole tomorrow and die but that made me dodge being stung by a bee ten years from now, I wouldnāt really take pleasure in not getting stung by that bee. That doesnāt make sense. I know thereās a meme saying āat least she doesnāt have to suffer anymore, at least sheās at restā, but the apparent wackness of Benatarās third statement right here is a counterargument of that meme since it just shows starkly how little it makes sense. If no-one is enjoying the absence of pain, is there really absence of pain even? The fourth statement is just as wack.
Hereās the negation of the two statements:
3. the absence of pain is good, except if that absence is not enjoyed by anyone;
4. the absence of pleasure is a liāl sad even when thereās no one for whom this absence is a deprivation.
Now that makes total sense to me.
There coulda been a bird singing happily here but now thereās just a gloomy mire of despair. Itās a liāl sad that the bird was never here.
I didnāt resolve the asymmetry either, although if Iām wrong on exactly one of those two, thatād fix it.
Yāall know how I spend all day everyday wishing I was never born but this āasymmetry argumentā is unintentionally showing how wack that wish really is: if I was never born I wouldnātāve benefited from any absence of this pain, completely negating the entire point of that wish, and now that Iāve already made the schlep all the way into existence I might as well enjoy the liāl strawberry of life even as there are tigers above and below me and they hurt in every joint and bone. Itās a pretty good strawberry. Grateful that Iām getting a liāl taste of it.