existential thinking

Hey everyone,

Does anyone here experience extreme psychological discomfort and/or amplification of depressive symptoms due to existential thinking?

Nope not me, I experience wonder, but nothing negative.

red

what is existential thinking ?

Seroxen wrote:what is existential thinking ?

Yes, please elaborate. I googled it and got a little information, but would like for you to expound on what you mean by "existential thinking."

Some articles at wikipedia might be of interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_despair

and21,

While I am quite impressed with your interest in existentialism, the very ambiguity of individual human nature and its relevance to complex philosophies makes your question hard to answer.

Why don't you give us an example of how the tenets of existential thinking affects you emotionally and possibly creates depression. Then we can see what commonalities we can share with you.


N.

Thanks for the interest, and thank you nymenche for your very eloquent reply.

Since existential crises invade every corner of ones being it is hard to boil down into a few sentences, but I will try and explain some of the thoughts going through my mind.

The fact that you can never hope to understand the world or universe and as wikipedia states, that all your actions are based on uncertain knowledge, is something that I have a hard time accepting.

Moral is seemingly something that does not exist outside of the human mind. This is something that some people find beautiful, but I do not like the notion that the only meaning which exists is subjective.

There is of course also the classic: "We are born alone, and we die alone". You can never really know anyone, eventhough it seems like you're with a person, you are always alone.

and21

Since I am not an existentialist, the philosophy itself doesn't diminish my personal optimistic viewpoint. But some of the tenets that you have outlined are very common in all people's lives.

all your actions are based on uncertain knowledge

This is always true; nothing in life is ever guaranteed. You must make choices based on what you think is best and go from there. If we always knew what life was going to bring us, it would be fairly boring and unchallenging.

the only meaning which exists is subjective.

Again this is true for most people. Morality is subjective: what I consider is right is not necessarily what you consider is right. A society may form a consensus of what the members in general consider moral and transform those "shared" beliefs into laws. But not everyone in the society may believe that the laws valid. For example in this country some people believe in unrestricted abortion, others believe in no abortion, and others believe in something in between. The moral question is when is abortion the killing of anoher human being? There is NO specific answer to that question, so laws are enacted based on what appears to be the consensus opinion.

Other societies have different moral standards that are hard for outsiders to understand: honor killing, female circumcision, polygamy, animal sacrifice, etc. Whether I agree with these or not, they are valid for the groups and individuals that embrace these views. I don't know that I have the right to impose my views on another, but by the same case, I don't have to accept these values as my own just because someone else believes them. It is for me to decide based on my subjective and objective beliefs.

BTW, existentialism itself is full of contradictions and ambiguity. It is what in its essence it expounds: subject to personal interpretation.

Do you consider yourself an existentialist? Just curious. If you are you can find it in many of the early writers of the 20th century. I took a course in college covering the writings but found the literature extremely dark and depressing. A part of life, I know, but not necessarily the part I like to dwell on.

Best wishes,

N.

I don't really consider myself anything other than agnostic.
I try to only believe in what I can know for sure, and the only thing I can know for sure is that I can't know anything. Solipsism cannot be disproved, and although the mere thought of life being a dream or that your mind is the only thing that exists, seems absurd, you can never really know.

Which label(s) do you think suits you?

This is an interesting topic. As a person trained in scientist, I appreciate how hard it is to measure things--any and everything. If you had 100 people measure a table with a ruler, you would get many different answers. Often the people who are most sure of themselves are often way off.

However, for most things around us, we can get reaonable good answers. I try to get myself out of this rut by thinking in terms of possibilities and probablies. Just because there is a possibility of something happening, does not make it probable. For example if I buy a lottery ticket, I have a possibliity of winning big, but I probably will not win--the chance of winning is about the same as being killed by an asteriod. Yes it could happen, but it probably will not. Some people appreciate this reasoning, but most do not. I tend to go with what science and math tell me is most probable.
Jim