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I'm gonna go against concensus and say I agree. There are countless excuses for why it's a net neutral or even a positive for us to waste our most finite resour

I'm gonna go against concensus and say I agree. There are countless excuses for why it's a net neutral or even a positive for us to waste our most finite resource (time). But chances are, you're not going to be glad you played that one extra game, or watched more TV shows, when you're on your deathbed. I don't accept that life is about happiness. Happiness is too vague of a term, used to describe multiple different things. Does it mean a measure of how much pleasure one is feeling in a given moment? Satisfaction with one's own life? How much entertainment someone manages to have? We could reduce the argument that life is about simple pleasure to its logical conclusion, and ask why it wouldn't be optimal to use drugs and/or a neural device to induce a semiconscious, lasting state of maximal pleasure. I don't accept that most people would choose this life. And to anticipate that objection that it's because you have to look at a ultiliarian view of everyone's happiness, I don't think most people would choose to have everyone collectively in that state, either. I assert that life is about meaning. That's why the above doesn't sound appealing (probably). What do you do that is truly meaningful, to yourself? That is what makes a life well lived and gives you satisfaction, and it's separate from how happy you feel. And it could be chess games. It's up to us to look inside and figure it out for ourselves. I'm just tired of people expressing existential angst and it being met with "it makes you feel good so it's good".

lhorie 6y ago
> We could reduce the argument that life is about simple pleasure to its logical conclusion If you really want to reduce, then you might as well go for the physics explanation: everything is deterministically following the laws of physics and any perception from your meat brain about what's desirable or noble or whatever are merely entropic microstates of a large complex physical system. Therefore, there's no "choice", and whether one specific individual chose to play a game at one time and another chose to study cancer at another time are entirely inevitable outcomes given the exact arrangement of atoms at their respective times. The idea that an individual conscience has control over any outcomes would have to somehow prove that it's possible for some metaphysical force to change chemical reactions enough to "flip a bit" in a neuron in some way that is capable of affecting a macroscopic human decision that would otherwise have taken a difference course, had one "let" chemistry run its deterministic course. I've read of experiments where lab rats lost the will to live so to speak, when they had their pleasure chemical receptors short-circuited (meaning, given the choice after experiencing the "neural device", they chose to submit to it). This suggests that motivation is indeed merely governed by a series of chemical reactions, rather than being a supernatural actor in its own right. It just so happens that from a natural selection perspective, organisms that take outside stimulus into account in their pleasure mechanisms are more likely to reproduce. Acts like choosing to play games or choosing to study are, under that interpretation, merely variations of evolved neurological mechanisms attempting to generate dopamine through convoluted means.
chewz 6y ago
> I assert that life is about meaning For some people yes, for others not. > Frankl points to research indicating a strong relationship between “meaninglessness” and criminal behavior, addiction and depression. He argues that in the absence of meaning, people fill the resultant void with hedonistic pleasures, power, materialism, hatred, boredom, or neurotic obsessions and compulsions (Frankl 1992, p. 143). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/viktor-frankl/ https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/vi...

lhorie 6y ago

> We could reduce the argument that life is about simple pleasure to its logical conclusion If you really want to reduce, then you might as well go for the physics explanation: everything is deterministically following the laws of physics and any perception from your meat brain about what's desirable or noble or whatever are merely entropic microstates of a large complex physical system. Therefore, there's no "choice", and whether one specific individual chose to play a game at one time and another chose to study cancer at another time are entirely inevitable outcomes given the exact arrangement of atoms at their respective times. The idea that an individual conscience has control over any outcomes would have to somehow prove that it's possible for some metaphysical force to change chemical reactions enough to "flip a bit" in a neuron in some way that is capable of affecting a macroscopic human decision that would otherwise have taken a difference course, had one "let" chemistry run its deterministic course. I've read of experiments where lab rats lost the will to live so to speak, when they had their pleasure chemical receptors short-circuited (meaning, given the choice after experiencing the "neural device", they chose to submit to it). This suggests that motivation is indeed merely governed by a series of chemical reactions, rather than being a supernatural actor in its own right. It just so happens that from a natural selection perspective, organisms that take outside stimulus into account in their pleasure mechanisms are more likely to reproduce. Acts like choosing to play games or choosing to study are, under that interpretation, merely variations of evolved neurological mechanisms attempting to generate dopamine through convoluted means.

chewz 6y ago

> I assert that life is about meaning For some people yes, for others not. > Frankl points to research indicating a strong relationship between “meaninglessness” and criminal behavior, addiction and depression. He argues that in the absence of meaning, people fill the resultant void with hedonistic pleasures, power, materialism, hatred, boredom, or neurotic obsessions and compulsions (Frankl 1992, p. 143). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/viktor-frankl/ https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/vi...