I’m not sure. I think I can imagine an existence without the experience of ‘bad’, though that doesn’t mean it’s actually possible, or that we would find such a state meaningful. The more relevant question for me is whether one outweighs the other (or are they perfectly balanced)?
I don’t think duality is absolute, it is more like different degrees or states things have. Goodness, badness are a play that lasts until nothing remains. This for me is a perfect balance, peace, death.
But in this play that we exist in, do you think the experience of badness or goodness is greater? Or do you think they roughly cancel each other out? Or that there’s no way of even assessing such thing?
If things were 50% bad and 50% good, they would cancel themselves out. Good and bad are not absolutes , everything is a mix but not fifty-fifty because things would not exist anymore, and if you want an answer for the way you see it maybe there is more good than bad.
Hmmm, yeah, I don’t really see why things wouldn’t exist anymore if things happened to be fifty-fifty. But I guess if you think there’s more good than bad over the course of history then that’s a win for existence .
For me I think it largely depends on the future. I think suffering may well have outweighed positive experience for most of the history of life. But with the development of technology and society, there seems to be the capacity to make things unimaginably better. Although things could also get much worse. It’s so hard to judge though when perception of reality is so altered by emotional state.
Once9/27/2019 - 10:26 am
All existence is a balance, or rather in a balance, so what I want is irrelevant. I want peace and contentment, but the nature of all life is to exist within the framework provided, and the laws of that framework require light and dark, happiness and sadness, life and death. So yes, one cannot exist without the other. There is balance. It just seems that somedays the negative side of the scale is freaking overloaded. Recognizing that the positive side of that same scale isn’t always what we want it to be is a key part in realizing that some days we really don’t have it as bad as we think we do. I guess I’m speaking for my own experiences with that statement. I’ve had to learn to settle for much less than what I believe I deserve in order to find days of contentment – some days just appreciating that I can walk, feed and bathe myself is all the “good” the universe is gonna offer me.
I think its the other way round; so long as nature exists the way it is, there will always be duality of good and bad because its a matter of perspective and also depends upon the context. Take the law of the jungle, is a lion killing a young deer bad? Perhaps the same law applies everywhere in different forms and is neither good or bad taking into account all points of view. Perhaps the only constant that is above all contexts is meaninglessness.
from a certain point of view, or in a certain sense, the pot exists
from a certain point of view, the pot does not exist
from a certain point of view, the pot exists and does not exist
from a certain point of view, the pot is inexpressible
from a certain point of view, the pot both exists and is inexpressible
from a certain point of view, the pot both does not exist and is inexpressible
from a certain point of view, the pot exists, does not exist, and is also inexpressible
Nature’s Duality: atoms exist and fill void or it is a void
Yes, that makes sense, because “good” and “bad” kind of only work as descriptors if they have opposites. Labeling something “good” implies the possibility of things that are “not good”. Conversely, labeling something “bad” implies the possibility of things that are “not bad”.
Without evil we could not know good, and without good we could not know evil. These types of things must always exist in opposition. Pain/Pleasure, Joy/Sorrow, happiness/sadness, etc.
15 comments
I’m not sure. I think I can imagine an existence without the experience of ‘bad’, though that doesn’t mean it’s actually possible, or that we would find such a state meaningful. The more relevant question for me is whether one outweighs the other (or are they perfectly balanced)?
I don’t think duality is absolute, it is more like different degrees or states things have. Goodness, badness are a play that lasts until nothing remains. This for me is a perfect balance, peace, death.
An absolute equilibrium is death.
I don’t think an absolute equilibrium exists because this means death, we would not be.
But in this play that we exist in, do you think the experience of badness or goodness is greater? Or do you think they roughly cancel each other out? Or that there’s no way of even assessing such thing?
If things were 50% bad and 50% good, they would cancel themselves out. Good and bad are not absolutes , everything is a mix but not fifty-fifty because things would not exist anymore, and if you want an answer for the way you see it maybe there is more good than bad.
Hmmm, yeah, I don’t really see why things wouldn’t exist anymore if things happened to be fifty-fifty. But I guess if you think there’s more good than bad over the course of history then that’s a win for existence .
Exactly right. I think existence is 51 % good and 49 bad. Pretty close
For me I think it largely depends on the future. I think suffering may well have outweighed positive experience for most of the history of life. But with the development of technology and society, there seems to be the capacity to make things unimaginably better. Although things could also get much worse. It’s so hard to judge though when perception of reality is so altered by emotional state.
All existence is a balance, or rather in a balance, so what I want is irrelevant. I want peace and contentment, but the nature of all life is to exist within the framework provided, and the laws of that framework require light and dark, happiness and sadness, life and death. So yes, one cannot exist without the other. There is balance. It just seems that somedays the negative side of the scale is freaking overloaded. Recognizing that the positive side of that same scale isn’t always what we want it to be is a key part in realizing that some days we really don’t have it as bad as we think we do. I guess I’m speaking for my own experiences with that statement. I’ve had to learn to settle for much less than what I believe I deserve in order to find days of contentment – some days just appreciating that I can walk, feed and bathe myself is all the “good” the universe is gonna offer me.
I think its the other way round; so long as nature exists the way it is, there will always be duality of good and bad because its a matter of perspective and also depends upon the context. Take the law of the jungle, is a lion killing a young deer bad? Perhaps the same law applies everywhere in different forms and is neither good or bad taking into account all points of view. Perhaps the only constant that is above all contexts is meaninglessness.
from a certain point of view, or in a certain sense, the pot exists
from a certain point of view, the pot does not exist
from a certain point of view, the pot exists and does not exist
from a certain point of view, the pot is inexpressible
from a certain point of view, the pot both exists and is inexpressible
from a certain point of view, the pot both does not exist and is inexpressible
from a certain point of view, the pot exists, does not exist, and is also inexpressible
Nature’s Duality: atoms exist and fill void or it is a void
Yes, that makes sense, because “good” and “bad” kind of only work as descriptors if they have opposites. Labeling something “good” implies the possibility of things that are “not good”. Conversely, labeling something “bad” implies the possibility of things that are “not bad”.
I absolutely agree. This is life. You cannot be alive and not deal with both good and bad.
Without evil we could not know good, and without good we could not know evil. These types of things must always exist in opposition. Pain/Pleasure, Joy/Sorrow, happiness/sadness, etc.