Seditious
GodSlayer
As always your very simplistic and powerful argument is a spur for my thoughts - I always feel like I'm in denial in any discussion along these lines with you, which perhaps I am, but so be it
It seems to me, that the only reason I am able to attach value to my happiness is because it is in contrast to other states, remembered from the past and perceived to be of potential in the future. A cherishing of the moment perhaps? 'Happiness' may still 'feel' the same without such a value attached to it... but without value, well, it's worthless.
aww, thanks for the kinds words. nice way to start the day.I've always had a problem with what is evidently a Christian apologetic for what is frankly just a bad hypothesis (it was Hume who pointed it out---natural religion infers from the idea of a perfect creator that there must be a heaven because of injustice here, when the observation should be, from the injustice here there is no perfect creator and thus no heaven either)---a popular answer to the problem of evil is that it's part of God's beneficence, 'without the bad you couldn't recognise the good'. I have a problem with it because I didn't need to tear ligaments in my knee to give an orgasm the thumbs up, why I didn't even need a paper-cut, I'd have been quite happy to know ice-cream was better than custard and orgasms were better than ice-cream, and appreciate the great things in life with a wholly 0 to 10 scale rather than -10 to 10. And really, the elegance with which 'living things strive to stay alive, and pain motivates avoidance of that which is not conducive to live' wraps things up is just profound compared with this absurd conspiracy theory of a creator. I prefer, what seems rather similar but isn't, what Alan Watts said, "to be more sensitive to pleasure you have to be more sensitive to pain", simple as that, it's an inevitability of the function, a function useful for attraction and aversion, and those motivations are sufficient to say why we have them, no 'well, the man with the blueprints thought we'd enjoy pleasure more if we were miserable' necessary.
fuck, I know I'm ranting, sorry
To me, that value is inherent, very much instinctual. I think if we first look at pain we can reflect on happiness and see the same thing. You would be in a lot of peril if you had to decide how you felt about injury (or even things that cause harm, think of a revulsion of leeches on the body, or fear in the face of wild animals) when it occurred. The nervous system is programmed to the core. You may not recognise that you value not being in pain if you've never experienced it, that makes sense, but you certainly do, simply by the fact that it's not painful to experience 'no pain'... a truism I know, but you see the point---that we can even distinguish one thing as unpleasant and another as pleasant suggests we already have a valuing of things ('psychological hedonism' is roughly accurate, I disagree only partially, as it doesn't take all too human facets into account). With happiness the same, I argue that we already value the absence of all things upsetting, and that's a fundamental prerequisite to actually doing anything about an upset. Certainly it has no worth in our worthless existence, and if you woke up with a profound amnesia you would probably be incapable of appreciating your comfy bed, night's rest, and health, as you normally would, having the gratitude that comes from knowing there is an alternative one might well experience, and an undesirable one at that, but here getting to the heart of things, I don't see how there would be a terrible thing in an impossible thought experiment of going through life entirely happy and never being able to truly appreciate that life as any normal human would.
I think an inclination to think poorly of/look down on/think ourselves proper in refusing these ideas of mindless existence, of no appreciation of the possibilities of life, of consuming but producing nothing, achieving nothing, having been nothing to other people and the like all come from an assumption that there is something meaningful in life. But in absence of an argument affirming that there is, it's our duty to to call into question the validity of our inclinations, to, in the light of reason, as Aldous Huxley said, "pass judgment on what our desires and dislikes affirm to be good or bad". Hypothesis: we should pity all the people who never have children (me, you?, many people), great, there's an idea, perhaps a hypothesis someone our there has an emotional bias toward... but, we/they need to first affirm that it is actually more valuable to have a child than not, and if we cannot, though we may already have our own personal preference, we need to reserve any ranking of the worth of both such lives, and go forth challenging our feelings in light of the fact what direction they may push us toward may not in fact be any better, or vice versa.
This is something that came to mind recently, since the few occasions of being called a sociopath for my views... I realized that I'm most certainly not, because I have compassionate inclinations, even for cute little animals, what the thing is though is simply that I recognise that these are baseless and thus not a fair standard to dictate the conduct of my life---I don't want to kill anyone, but if war came to my nation I may well fight for my life. I like to relax, but sometimes I push my muscles and struggle in discomfort or pain. But you see, I have no reason to say 'only what is most agreeable to my sentiments is what I shall do with my life', what I philosophically understand is an acceptable or valuable thing to do I may well be right to overcome my fear or revulsion or pain to achieve, that's what it comes down to, a virtuousness over the dictates of emotion, an adherence to reason.
