Processual Pessimism. On the Nature of Cosmic Suffering and Human Nothingness

© Vladislav Pedder, 2026

ISBN 978-5-0069-0818-5

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Preface

If you are holding this book in your hands, you clearly lack pessimism in your life. Or are you still hoping to find in it the tale of the kind elf promised by Professor N., which he never finished in the first part? You will be disappointed: the tale is over. This is the second part of the Dilogy of the Tragic, which brings the project to its completion. The Experience of the Tragic, the first book, explores the theme of the tragic for humanity. The task was to lay bare the problem and to show the full ambiguity of the contemporary human tragedy through an analysis of the limits of reason and the structure of experience.

The description of human tragedy proceeded through two independent thinkers – Professors N. and P. Professor N. radicalized the Dionysian acceptance of the world, proposing a conscious dwelling in a state of ontological uncertainty without recourse to the defensive strategies of consciousness. Professor P. criticized this position, introducing the idea of the Differentiating experience – a fundamental level of being that precedes any meaning. His position was described as ontologically oriented pessimism, free from aestheticized melancholy. But both positions – N. with his asceticism of unbelief, and P. with his analytical pessimism – reflect a dead end; ultimately the tragedy remains unresolved. N. was forced to live within uncertainty outside any beliefs, whereas P. endlessly generated new experience without finding a point of support. All forms of philosophical response proved secondary with respect to the experience that conditions them, while that experience itself remains excessive and inexhaustible.

This work completes the investigation begun earlier but takes a decisive step beyond the human perspective. If the first book concentrated on the tragic experience of human beings, this study discloses the cosmic nature of tragedy for the whole world and radically revises the ontological status of experience itself. After acknowledging the impasse of Professors N.‘s and P.‘s positions, only honesty about one’s own predicament remains.

The central thesis of this book is as follows: the Cosmos is not indifferent to life, as is commonly assumed. All living beings – temporary organizations of matter – necessarily serve to accelerate entropy on the path to general decay and equilibration. Everything in the Cosmos exists only within a single large-scale process: to bring the Cosmos closer to its own death. This conclusion requires a radical revision of both ontological foundations and ethical consequences. The book develops a processual ontology free from biocentric and anthropocentric prejudices.

Each part of the book is self-contained, and the reader may begin with any section. Nevertheless, the logic of the work is arranged to lead the reader from ontological foundations through processuality to ethical consequences and, finally, to the question of whether it is possible to exist under full awareness of the tragic nature of being. An appendix includes information about the author, since behind every philosophical position there is always a personal history that may help the reader better understand the origins of these ideas.

Like the previous book, this work relies on numerous works from various disciplines – from cosmology and thermodynamics to ethics and theology. I proceed from the premise that any contemporary intellectual work is intertextual by nature. It engages in a dialogue with predecessors and contemporaries, and knowledge is born precisely in that dialogue. Those who insist on sterile originality are either mistaken or misleading their readers.

The Cosmic pessimism developed here differs from classical philosophical pessimism in that it elevates the pessimistic intuition to a cosmological absolute. Processuality is given a strict definition through informational-thermodynamic processes, which makes it possible to look beyond the anthropocentric perspective.

With this the The “Tragic” dilogy is concluded, though it does not claim finality. The processual nature of reality means that all knowledge remains provisional. However, unlike optimistic epistemologies that read this provisionality as a promise of progress, Cosmic pessimism sees in it only confirmation that the movement of cognition itself is part of the entropic process. We do not know in order to overcome ignorance; we know because the process of knowing serves the same purpose as all other processes – the acceleration of movement toward final equilibrium and the death of the Cosmos.

Introduction

Before beginning, it is necessary to close an important topic that provoked a certain controversy among readers after the first reviews of the book The Experience of the Tragic appeared. Some saw in it an existentialism in the spirit of Kierkegaard; others – Schopenhauerian pessimism; there were those who perceived nihilism in the presence of dualism and the refusal of straightforwardness. When I wrote the first part of the book Existential Limits of Reason, I did not suppose that readers would interpret that section as a how-to guide or as yet another philosophy of reconciliation with reality.

The review “On the Experiences of the Tragic” by Matvey Chertovskikh, published in DARKER, No. 8, August 2025, revealed a fundamental hermeneutical misunderstanding1, that allowed the section on “Liminal acceptance” to be read as another existential defensive strategy. The review was instructive for me, but it exposed the gap between the meaning I intended and the way it was read.

Allow me to clarify: Liminal acceptance2 was not introduced to offer solutions to existential problems, but precisely to demonstrate the absence of any solution at all; this was meant to be evident already at the stage of absurd thought experiments with “Liminal acceptance.” It was a demonstration of the absence of any answer or exit from humanity’s predicament and a large-scale critique of all liberatory practices, since contemporary practical philosophy, psychology, and spiritual practices are built on the illusion of an exit from a hopeless situation.

Stoicism promises inner tranquillity through control over what is within our power. Buddhism proposes liberation from suffering through renunciation of desire. Contemporary cognitive-behavioral therapy maintains that changing thought patterns will change emotional reality. All these approaches proceed from the fundamental assumption that there exists a way to cope with the horror of existence, that there is a technique, practice, or attitude that will allow us to attain resilience in the face of the absurd.

The introduction of Liminal acceptance into the narrative was a methodological device – I deliberately constructed a framework that outwardly resembles those consolatory practices in order to demonstrate its failure. It was a trap for readerly expectations, a pedagogical provocation if you will. I proposed five steps of acceptance – acknowledgment of epistemic absurdity, ethical minimization of suffering, exposure of compensatory mechanisms, humble merging with reality, acceptance of fate and finitude – knowing that in the second part of the book, voiced by Prof. P., all these steps would be methodically deconstructed as yet another form of self-deception and knowing that it is impossible to apply these steps without confronting acedia as an inner emptiness and meaninglessness. I described examples of such strategies as instances of futile attempts to find an exit.

I will analyse some examples that prof. N. cited as excellent practices. For example, the philosophy of Stoicism, which today is actively promoted within neo-Stoicism circles as a panacea for contemporary anxiety. Marcus Aurelius advises focusing on what is within our power and not worrying about what is beyond it. It sounds reasonable. But if we look more closely, where will this lead in reality? Fortunately, we have real cases. In Descartes’ Error (1994) Portuguese neuroscientist Antonio Damasio recounts the story of his patient whose personality changed after brain surgery. When Eliot, Damasio’s patient, lost the capacity to experience emotions after the removal of a brain tumour, he obtained precisely what the Stoics dream of – complete rational detachment from anxieties, passions, and emotions. As a result, he could not choose the date for his next appointment for half an hour, until he was interrupted, carefully weighing every “for” and “against,” because there was no emotional fuel for decision-making; he lost his job, his family, and all his savings. It turns out that emotions do not merely “interfere with reason” – they constitute the very structure of decision-making.

Somatic markers3, as Damasio calls them, are a necessary condition for navigating the world and making decisions; without them one cannot survive long.

Stoics maintain that one can control the expression of emotions through self-discipline and a rational justification of the significance of events. But that presupposes that the brain makes decisions after we have “decided” them. Modern neuroscience shows the opposite. Decisions are made at an unconscious level fractions of a second before we “become aware” of them. Instead of genuine “control” we only observe how they unfold and rationalize them post factum. The illusion of control offered by Stoicism is precisely what Zapffe called the anchoring mechanism – the artificial creation of a foothold in the chaos of determined existence.

Moreover, the historical context of Stoicism exposes its true function. The philosophy emerged as a technique of submission to circumstances that were genuinely uncontrollable in the ancient world – disease, war, slavery, the arbitrariness of tyrants. It is no accident that Stoicism is recalled chiefly when needed, for example in times of war and uncertainty. Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, praised apatheia not as an absolute good in itself but as a survival mechanism under conditions of total vulnerability. Epictetus, a former slave, developed the doctrine of distinguishing what is within our power and what is not precisely from the experience of complete powerlessness. It is a philosophy of necessity presenting itself as a philosophy of freedom.

David Hume, in his essays, subjected Stoicism to crushing criticism. Stoics preach impassivity, yet behave as ordinary humans, subject to the same affects. Socrates disliked the Stoics precisely because they produced nothing but demagoguery – elegant words about virtue and self-control unbacked by real practice. Contemporary neo-Stoicism, Eastern practices, and their analogues repeat the same mistake, packaging ancient techniques of psychological defence in an attractive wrapper of “rationality” and “mindfulness” for the purpose of selling courses, guided meditations, books, scented candles, and shiny pendants.

Now turn to Buddhism, which is often presented as a deeper alternative to Western rationality. The Four Noble Truths proclaim that suffering arises from desire, and that the cessation of desire leads to liberation. Yet here lies a fundamental paradox that Buddhism has not resolved: the striving for liberation from desires is itself a desire. The striving for nirvana is another attachment, another form of the very clinging from which Buddhism calls us to free ourselves. Chan Buddhism recognized this problem and formulated it in the form of a kōan: “One who seeks enlightenment will never attain it.” But this recognition does not solve the problem; it merely relocates it to the plane of mystical paradox. The problem does not lie in paradoxes, however, but in Buddhism’s original turn of position in its separation from Hinduism through the denial of ātman and Brahman (anatta/ anatman), to which I will return in detail at the end of the book.

Peter Wessel Zapffe, whose philosophical legacy was central to my inquiry, demonstrated that many, if not all, religious and philosophical systems function as mechanisms of distraction from the fundamental tragedy of consciousness. It is more accurate, however, to shift this idea toward ontological distraction, where the distraction itself is dictated by the incessant renewal of experience – yet this does not remove the very tragedy of consciousness that Zapffe revealed. The Buddhist doctrine of anattā (anatman), denying the existence of a permanent, substantial “self,” at first glance appears to be a close ally of philosophical currents that regard the subject as an illusion or a by-product of processes. Indeed, in The Experience of the Tragic the development of the idea of the illusoriness of the subject begins. Nevertheless, a critical, worldview-defining chasm lies between these positions. Buddhism offers a path to liberation (nirvana) through the apprehension of non-self, whereas in the pessimistic and tragic perspective the recognition of this illusoriness does not lead to salvation but only deepens the existential catastrophe. We cannot “exit” the illusion because there is no one to exit – the very structure of experience is inextricably bound up with that illusion. Anyone who has endured states of profound depersonalization or dissociation can easily rebut the concept of anatman: feeling oneself as “not-I,” one nonetheless persists; one’s inward gaze remains, fundamentally it does not dissolve but recedes to the background, which in the philosophical dispute between Buddhists and Hindus exposes and again confirms that the most complete ontological models remain those that postulate some basic subjectivity, such as Atman and Brahman, rather than its total absence.

The problem with the concepts of Atman and Brahman is not their existence but their naïve theistic interpretation. They are mistakenly construed as a personal God or a “higher” consciousness, sometimes as a form of panpsychism, whereas in reality they describe an impersonal, unfolding process in which our local “I” arises as a transient form that, strictly speaking, does not truly persist. Depersonalization, for example, as with any psychedelic experience, reflects to us the capitalized “Self” – the Atman – which likewise is not there. Atman is often described as the “fundamental, higher Self,” but this is only a conceptual device for describing the manifestation of impersonal Brahman in the most limited form.

This internal contradiction of Buddhism reaches its climax in the concept of śūnyatā, or universal emptiness. Śūnyatā proves to be a self-negating notion that requires the mind to perform a logically impossible act: to disappear while at the same time continuing to witness its own disappearance. It is an endless movement toward a goal that annihilates the very agent that moves toward it, thereby rendering any genuine attainment paradoxical and inexpressible. Any experience of “emptiness,” any mystical experience, immediately becomes the content of consciousness – a new object for a subject that has not been abolished. Thus Buddhism, while rightly rejecting a substantial “self,” substitutes it with a phantom chain of conditioned dharmas, yet cannot satisfactorily answer the question: for whom does this chain unfold as a coherent, lived experience?

Not to mention that “nirvana” remains an unclear construct lacking a precise description, and that by his silence regarding the avyākṛta (the unaskable or “fruitless” questions) the Buddha only exacerbates the situation. Silence in itself could be a position, but not for him. Why begin this whole teaching if, in the end, the world is presented with only a “great” revelation about the essence of which one can say absolutely nothing? Having apprehended the true nature of all things, would one busy oneself explaining it to those who are not enlightened?

The Buddha’s active proselytizing and his strategic abstention from judgments on ultimate ontological questions call into question the very possibility of a substantive transmission of “enlightenment.” Moreover, Buddhism tends to absolutize the role of meditation. Undoubtedly meditation exists in Hinduism as well, but there it remains rather a useful instrument among others. Followers of the Buddha may claim that, in their tradition, meditation is not an end in itself. However, to an outside observer Buddhism has firmly established itself as the principal ideologue and promoter of meditative practice as the route to liberation.

All meditative experiences to which liberatory significance is ascribed can be readily explained physiologically – by hyperventilation or altered respiratory patterns. Holotropic breathing and the Buteyko method4 demonstrate this plainly, without Eastern mystification. Indeed, one may feel a “dissolution” of the boundaries of the self, a change in perception of body and space, but it is impossible to remove anything, for there is nothing to remove except egocentrism that is born within a multiplicity of processes. A completely “pure” system does not function; without a minimal center of experience the experience simply will not arise It is like an attempt to remove the operating system on which the user himself runs – at the moment of deletion not only the interface disappears, but also the very possibility of perceiving anything. Therefore any “dissolution” remains a temporary aberration, a protection against overload, but not a genuine disappearance of the subject. To me these Buddhist “truths” appear as a challenge to Hindu monopoly, much like Lutheranism challenged Catholicism for minds, power, and resources. History knows many such schisms. Mahāyāna, in turn, challenged the “orthodox” Theravāda, denouncing it as the “small vehicle” and thereby extending the potential audience of salvation to all sentient beings. Schopenhauer, inspired by Buddhism, proposed asceticism as a way of denying the will to live. Yet this solution too proves illusory. Ascetic negation is itself a manifestation of will – the desire not to desire. It is not an exit from the cycle of suffering. Philipp Mainländer went further, proclaiming suicide as the logical conclusion of Schopenhauerian philosophy. There we confront a paradox: suicide is an active act that requires will, motivation, a desire to change one’s state. It is not liberation from experience but its radical form – the final experience before non-being, which cannot be perceived as relief because there is no one there to feel relief. I described all this in the second part, but not everyone took notice.

Now about contemporary popular psychology and its promises of “emotion regulation.” Cognitive-behavioral therapy claims that changing thought patterns will change emotional states. This presupposes that we control our thoughts. But do we control them or merely pretend to? Thoughts arise spontaneously; we do not choose them – we observe them appearing in the stream of consciousness. Mindfulness techniques teach observing thoughts without attachment, but who is this observer?

Lisa Feldman Barrett showed that emotions are conceptual constructions the brain creates to interpret bodily sensations. We do not “feel fear” as an objective state – we construct the concept of fear from a set of interoceptive signals plus context plus cultural presets. This means that the attempt to “manage emotions” is an attempt to manage one’s own interpretations, which are generated at a pre-reflective level faster than we can become aware of them.

Consider the feature film Equilibrium. In this dystopia society achieves “liberation from emotions” through the drug prozium. The result is a zombified existence devoid of depth, meaning, and what makes life life – emotions. The film criticizes this utopia of rationality but misses a deeper truth: even if we could eliminate emotions, we would not solve the problem of suffering. Eliot’s case shows that life stripped of emotional coloration does not become “purer” or “more rational” – it becomes dysfunctional and destructive. Emotions constitute the foundation of the mind’s functioning rather than impede it.

That is precisely why Liminal acceptance, which I described in the first part of the book, cannot operate as a “solution.” When I speak of accepting epistemic absurdity, of humble merging with reality, of accepting fate and death – these are not techniques to be practiced in order to attain inner calm. They describe the moment when all techniques collapse, when it becomes obvious that there is no exit. Liminal acceptance is not a solution; it is the fixation of the problem in its pure form. One must understand that once Pandora’s box has been opened in the form of the awareness of all the horrors of existence, it can never be closed. For me, as for many, Ligotti was that box: no one showed the immediate reality of our world and our position in it better than he did, without metaphysical refinements, without Schopenhauer’s or Mainländer’s “Will,” a reality plain and comprehensible as it is, albeit often through the lens of the horror-fiction genre. Nothing will fill that void that has always been within you but has suddenly been discovered. Exposure therapy5 is effective. You can learn to think about death without panic attacks. Accepting death is relatively easy, and one should not forget about it; for some it is fear, for others even the worst thing they have ever faced in life. But emptiness and meaninglessness are something different. This is not fear of an event, but the awareness of the absence of any ground. And this emptiness is not filled. Whatever you try to fill it with – meanings, projects, attachments, achievements – it always returns, because it was never an empty space requiring completion. This is reality.

That is precisely why, in the second part of the book, Professor P. criticizes the concept of Liminal acceptance, showing that it remains within the framework of the illusion of a subject who “accepts.” But if the subject is only a temporary model generated by the brain, then who is it that accepts? Acceptance presupposes an agent; there is no separate subject that could accept anything. There exists only a continuous process in which temporary states arise and disappear. Any “strategy of acceptance” turns out to be a fiction: changes simply occur according to deterministic laws, and there is no independent center that chooses or rejects these changes.

My critique, for the sake of which this division of roles into two professors was conceived, is not directed against the practices themselves as such, but against their being sold as ontological salvation. There is a critical distinction between a method of temporary calming and a claim to solve the fundamental problem of existence. But what if we admit honestly: life is meaningless, death is inevitable, and between these two points there is nothing that would require heroic effort? If we accept this not as a premise for further “spiritual growth,” but as a final conclusion, then the logical consequence becomes the minimization of intervention. Fuss loses any meaning. Why accumulate wealth if it only concentrates suffering through exploitation? Why accumulate knowledge if it only multiplies the awareness of meaninglessness?

There exist traditions that approached this understanding without elevating it into a metaphysical system of salvation, but I will not list them here – you can easily identify them yourself. They described a way of existing with minimal resistance to processes that will in any case unfold independently of our efforts. The difference lies in the fact that they did not promise nirvana, did not promise inner peace or transformation of consciousness. If you have already understood that struggle is meaningless, then why continue to struggle?

This is not the heroic asceticism of the Buddhist type, demanding renunciation for the sake of a higher goal. It is a simple recognition that active participation in economic, social, and emotional cycles requires energy that is spent on maintaining illusions. To consume only as much as is necessary for the functioning of the biological machine. To produce only as much as is required for this minimal consumption. When an action is necessary, to perform it with sufficient strength to achieve the immediate result, without excess, without an attempt to control consequences that lie beyond the limits of direct influence. The attempt to foresee and control distant consequences is a form of megalomania, the assumption that we are capable of calculating infinitely complex chains of cause and effect. The Stoic tries to control his reactions, the Buddhist tries to control his desires, the modern person tries to control career, relationships, the future. All these attempts arise from the assumption that control is possible and desirable. But if life is meaningless and will end in death regardless of our efforts, then it is more honest to admit that we do not know what will happen and therefore must limit ourselves to minimally necessary intervention. Even death is another form of active relation, requiring emotional investment. It will come in its own time, determined by the combination of biological processes and random factors. All that remains is to allow the process to proceed on its own.