Or does it?
I know we were once nothing, but it is still terrifying and depressing to me to think about returning to this. In fact, as of late, I’ve been unable to not think about it: the loss of all experience and all memories of everything, forever. All the good times we had, and will have, with anyone or anything ever will totally annihilate into nothingness. All our efforts will amount to nothing because the thoughtless void is ultimately what awaits everything in the end.
The only argument against this would have to be supernatural, like another cause of the Big Bang or somehow proof of reincarnation, but if my consciousness won’t exist for me to experience it, then what does it matter either way?
There is no comfort in Hell, either. The anvil of death weighing down, infinitely, on all values and passions is becoming unbearable for me, so I could really use any potentially helpful thoughts about this matter.
But gratification is ultimately just a series of chemical reactions. So you’re saying to merely dig into the chemicals? To be clear, I don’t fault you if your answer is “Yes” and even think that that’s the inevitable answer; it just seems less… valuable to me, if I couldn’t find a more accurate adjective.
I don’t think I’m looking for any particular belief but I guess I just wish that being kind to others (which, to clarify, I will almost certainly not just stop doing) mattered on a level more than just us wanting to do it for the chemicals, now that I’ve totally sunk into science’s observations of the material world being all that there is. Since I no longer believe that there is a higher power, I’ve concluded that we just do things for the feels, good or bad. And that seems… lame(? Or something) to me, but it appears like there is no other way to go about it. Morals don’t independently exist (there is no such objective thing as “justice,” etc.) and are just guided by hormones and chemicals evoking sympathy based on our experiences and subjective thoughts of what justice, happiness, peace, etc. even mean.
And then our memories of it all will end anyway. What a waste and tragedy.
Sorry for being such a sour worm. I do appreciate your response but all this thought is leading me to “seize the moment” and therefore procrastinate on doing my taxes versus playing games, etc.
No. I mean I guess you could see it that way, and you could even do that, whether those chemicals be internal or external. But I think that’s oversimplifying. The satisfaction and gratification come from knowing. Knowing that what you are doing right now is something that you want to be doing. Not want in the I want a sandwich sort of way. Want in the I want what I’m doing now to be the thing that gives my experience a more complete and deep meaning sort of way.
I would quote here but it seems pedantic.
You speak of chemicals and hormones evoking emotions (sympathy was your word) based on some arbitrary morals that don’t exist. And I don’t think you’re wrong. But I think in this case you’re not oversimplifying you’re overcomplicating. Erm. Let me see if I can elucidate. I’m thinking this through right now so let me see if I can get it right…
Think of yourself as an ant. On a very big round hill with a whole bunch of other ants. You are Flagstaff the ant. You are part of a colony. I am monocle the ant. And we are discussing this in some sort of bizarre moderated telepathy that we call words. I think some things, you think some things, and these things that we think of are all controlled by our hormones and chemicals. Pathways of how we think are familiar routes for those neurons that fire. That’s how we have been conditioned to be who we are.
We make decisions based on that. Our identities are based on that. What make us up are our experiences. And what we decide to do with those experiences. Just like every previous experience from every entity that we have ever come in contact with. So it’s like we couldn’t have ended up anywhere else because that’s what we have decided to do. This conversation is what we’ve decided to do. This is the question of free will.
So if you zoom way out, I mean like way way out, all you see is the colony. Like Flagstaff and monocle don’t really exist, except that we do. You don’t give names to ants. It’s just ants. You look at an ant colony, and you think there’s ants. Yet all the ants are communicating in a somewhat similar fashion as to what we are.
Is it pointless? What the ants do? What we do? Maybe. But there is some amount of meaning in the question that you asked. Or at least we hope there is. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here answering it, and you wouldn’t be replying to my answer, and I wouldn’t be replying to your counterpoint.
Being good to yourself and others. Whatever that is and whatever chemicals that it produces, cause and effect and all that. We don’t need a higher power for that. We are the higher power, we are the colony.
Well that sounds really hokey and like a bunch of metaphysical horse crap. But I’ve re-edited this thing like 10 times and I have work in the morning at my factory job. So I have to let it go for now. Hope that helps.
Oh, what you typed isn’t crap, haha, and dang, you don’t have to prioritize this before some tough upcoming work! I’m not suddenly going to off myself upon having these thoughts (rather, I want to keep positive experiences going), so I’ll still be here to read—but I appreciate the care nonetheless.
I’d rebut that by saying that’s only because they all look identical to us, and their more basic form of organism limits them from exhibiting drastically different behavior as people can way more observably demonstrate. I don’t know if scientists have studied whether bugs can identify each other; perhaps they can. Perhaps even their sense of the passage of time is different from ours.
This isn’t a matter of “need,” though; we basically can’t turn back to thoughts of a deity because of the massive logic defiance alone anyway, among other things. Rather, I would also raise uncertainty over this:
I just don’t know about that. Sure, society makes us relatively much safer off than we otherwise probably would be without it, but we still very much have our own individual independence or else there wouldn’t be anywhere near as much social rebellion and harm done to others, from Luigi’s shooting to the auto-denied claims equally. We are a part of society and can either continue supporting it, trying to change it, or actively leaving it or even antagonizing it.
I just don’t see any overarching reasons to prioritize one or the other beyond:
In light of the eventual death of even society (that’s an assumption I’m making, I’ll concede, sure), one can’t claim to take any particular one-of-the-above-actions versus anything else… beyond merely wanting to do it or not. Anything else is a false sense of nonexistent moral superiority over the other possible actions/reactions. One only helps the colony/society because it makes one feel good, but death still ultimately obliterates all—and all values with it. I guess that is where the crux of my developing, reluctant philosophy lies.
The indeterminability posed by quantum physics—specifically quasars—would like to have a word with you. There is some interesting stuff here to suggest that bugs aren’t all instinct, either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_Cognition