Reasons why life isn't just a dreadful trudge toward death

[Treedbear]

... Often the mistaken need to feel grateful in order to be happy leads to an intellectual conflict between the atheistic perspective and the need, ultimately, for a metaphysical purpose...

I don’t know if one needs a metaphysical anything to feel gratitude for those occasions of “happiness”. And not necessarily a human “someone” either. Nature does it for me. I feel gratitude to trees for breathable air; and to water and the ground and birdsong and so much else. I have an innate selection bias for the negative things in life, so happiness… or, I prefer the phrase “relative contentment”… is something I work at. Having a gratitude practice has helped a lot. I love to walk in the park, and when I do I don’t just try to be mindfully (bodily) present with the life in the park, I will often deliberately express my gratitude for all the life there in the park including 'mine'. There’s a boost in “relative contentment” with such deliberate practices.

Perhaps you're on to something. Gratitude eludes me, but that might be due to having had a Catholic upbringing. Gratitude for such things meant thanks to God. Now I thank Darwin for revealing the true beauty behind such things. I appreciate nature for its complexity and how we (being part of nature) are able to recognize that and understand it. But don't let me dissuade you. I've been known to say that happiness is over-rated. As far as religions go I'm most attracted to Shinto for the way it seems to evoke an appreciation of and a respect for that relationship.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Also it should be noted that whether or not life is a "dreadful trudge" is simply a judgment about life you make yourself, and therefore it is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is nether true nor false, it is entirely subjective. Of course there are people who have depression and they're not entirely responsible for how they view the world, but what I'm saying is, if you do not have depression, and are reasonably mentally well, you are much more responsible for how you view the world. Why make things more difficult for yourself? Why set yourself up as a victim?

It is important to note that there are many people who suffer from anxiety/fear etc., that are NOT depressed. Unfortunately this disorder is often inherited. It is not a self-fulfilling prophecy for them anymore than it is for others with a mental disorder such as depression. Those who suffer from GAD or SAD can be taught coping techniques, but it's not fair to imply they are somehow 'doing it to themselves'.

I already mentioned there are people who have mental issues and they are not entirely responsible for their thoughts.

 

[rousseau]

Have been thinking lately about how people who tend to over-think tend to be anxious, see problems more often, and have a tendency toward depression and unhappiness. In other words there seems to be at least a bit of a correlation between intelligence.. and just not being that happy.

Looking through the history of the art world you can see this pattern repeated quite often, really bright people who come to the conclusion that life is absurd, not worth living, but trudge through it all anyway.

All that said I believe that over-thinkers are just naturally pre-disposed to see the negative because it helps them survive, but are often completely blind to the positive because their mind isn't primed to look for it, even if they're aware of it sub-consciously.

So I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to tread against the water and look for those reasons for positivity. Why are things actually amazing? What are our reasons to be happy, hopeful, filled with gratitude?

What is amazing here is how intelligence gets mindlessly equated with "over think"! We can certainly assume that overdoing anything is bad but where do you articulate the connection between being intelligent and a tendency to "over think".

Now, if overdoing anything is bad there must be a reason to it. Possibly if you overdo anything it's because you have a medical condition, probably undiagnosed. And if you have a medical condition to the point of overdoing things then no wonder you feel unhappy somehow. So, the answer is just look at the ways you could sort out your medical condition and if you do then the likelihood is you'll end up feelling much better. Sometimes it's not a medical condition. It may be intoxication caused by your environment, whatever. The solution remains the same.

Often, there's no help available. You'll have to do much of the hard work on your own.
EB

This thread definitely took a different turn than I expected, but it's interesting. I was expecting more of a discussion about living itself, but for most people it's been about physical and mental balance.

That's pretty much what it's come down to in my mind for the past few years: trying to become as healthy as possible and hoping stability and contentment follow. What's actually happened is that I've taken things too far, and gotten bored with my overly health lifestyle and routine. In the end I ended up standing around trying to balance competing interests.

Within that, for the last few years there's been a sense of futility and dis-engagement regardless of how healthy I feel. I've accepted the way the world works, don't feel much of a sense of mystery, and mostly feel like I'm just walking through my life, doing the things I have to do. It's an interesting, but not necessarily the best place to be: for the most part I just don't think any of this matters but I'm alive anyway.

The only real answer I've come up with for that problem is that things are pretty good regardless, so at least I can go spend my money eating duck breast and driving cars around. There's that, and the fact that I'm free enough to direct my life where I want it to go.

 

[iolo]

The time everyone above a certain age looked back on with a sort of pleasure over here was the War, and I'd add the austerity afterwards. That was because people shared, and didn't expect much. On the other hand, if you want to find really miserable, selfish places, try hitching a lift where people go for 'pleasure', and you soon have such contempt for humans you'd just as soon die now. The great thing is to expect nothing at all and find the few people you can trust: then it is tolerable, even good. This is one of the many reasons capitalism is such a miserable system - the number of people who get pleasure for cheating their neighbours and showing off to the Joneses is extremely small.

 

[Speakpigeon]

What is amazing here is how intelligence gets mindlessly equated with "over think"! We can certainly assume that overdoing anything is bad but where do you articulate the connection between being intelligent and a tendency to "over think".

Now, if overdoing anything is bad there must be a reason to it. Possibly if you overdo anything it's because you have a medical condition, probably undiagnosed. And if you have a medical condition to the point of overdoing things then no wonder you feel unhappy somehow. So, the answer is just look at the ways you could sort out your medical condition and if you do then the likelihood is you'll end up feelling much better. Sometimes it's not a medical condition. It may be intoxication caused by your environment, whatever. The solution remains the same.

Often, there's no help available. You'll have to do much of the hard work on your own.
EB

This thread definitely took a different turn than I expected, but it's interesting. I was expecting more of a discussion about living itself, but for most people it's been about physical and mental balance.

That's pretty much what it's come down to in my mind for the past few years: trying to become as healthy as possible and hoping stability and contentment follow. What's actually happened is that I've taken things too far, and gotten bored with my overly health lifestyle and routine. In the end I ended up standing around trying to balance competing interests.

Within that, for the last few years there's been a sense of futility and dis-engagement regardless of how healthy I feel. I've accepted the way the world works, don't feel much of a sense of mystery, and mostly feel like I'm just walking through my life, doing the things I have to do. It's an interesting, but not necessarily the best place to be: for the most part I just don't think any of this matters but I'm alive anyway.

The only real answer I've come up with for that problem is that things are pretty good regardless, so at least I can go spend my money eating duck breast and driving cars around. There's that, and the fact that I'm free enough to direct my life where I want it to go.

There is a superficial way of looking at "healthy". Being healthy should only be your starting point. Once you're healthy enough you can try doing things. Physical exercise should come as a priority. The amount done should be sensible both in terms of effort and time spent, to leave room for other things. That's the other things that really matter. And I mean not driving cars around and spending money. Essentially, you need to exercise your brain. Not by solving Sudokus but by engaging with the main reality that's out there, i.e. what other people do and why they do it, i.e. what they really think. The speciality doesn't matter. What does is to aim at proposing alternative ways of thinking, alternative way of looking at things, and do it in a way that will be convincing. We have enough of car drivers, what we need is people who use their brain a little bit more. Trying to understand what other people really mean and go beyond received wisdom is the only thing that really matters, once the basics are taken care of.
EB

 

[Under the Rose]

This thread definitely took a different turn than I expected, but it's interesting. I was expecting more of a discussion about living itself, but for most people it's been about physical and mental balance.

That's pretty much what it's come down to in my mind for the past few years: trying to become as healthy as possible and hoping stability and contentment follow. What's actually happened is that I've taken things too far, and gotten bored with my overly health lifestyle and routine. In the end I ended up standing around trying to balance competing interests.

Within that, for the last few years there's been a sense of futility and dis-engagement regardless of how healthy I feel. I've accepted the way the world works, don't feel much of a sense of mystery, and mostly feel like I'm just walking through my life, doing the things I have to do. It's an interesting, but not necessarily the best place to be: for the most part I just don't think any of this matters but I'm alive anyway.

The only real answer I've come up with for that problem is that things are pretty good regardless, so at least I can go spend my money eating duck breast and driving cars around. There's that, and the fact that I'm free enough to direct my life where I want it to go.

There is an interesting phenomena that seems to occur when things are almost too easy. A strange dissatisfaction sets in and yet one cannot name the source of their discontent. Having gone through it a couple of times, I have a sense that it is an instinctive warning against becoming too complacent for the world is an inherently changeable and unforgiving place even as it is also full of exciting and wonderful things to experience. It may be more likely to be experienced by those who are either gifted or more fortunate than many of their peers in that they do not end up having to devote all of their time and resources to mere survival. Just my take on 'happiness' and how it is experienced by some yet seems a foreign frame of mind for others. It is the ability to enjoy the experience which makes life far more than drudgery, in my opinion.

 

[abaddon]

... people shared, and didn't expect much ... The great thing is to expect nothing at all and find the few people you can trust: then it is tolerable, even good. This is one of the many reasons capitalism is such a miserable system - the number of people who get pleasure for cheating their neighbours and showing off to the Joneses is extremely small.

Yes. I like this post.

The feeble creatures that firstworld civilization churns out by the billions would think scarcity is awful because they can’t buy stupid shit. But they must work like drones in order to have “the freedom” to buy all that stupid shit, freedom being equated with being surrounded by endless piles of stupid shit. It's kind of a vicious circle... we have all this stupid work to pay the bills and hope to have extra to buy a needless excess of shit, and we rather need to go shopping for that shit just to make the drudge of working seem meaningful. A healthier happier flourishing world without global warming and extinction events in it is possible, if everyone said "Fuck this, I don't want want to work for 'The Man' anymore and try to keep up with the Joneses". But instead of waiting for the revolution it’s better to live as if it has already happened, as much as possible. That’s the mistake of anarchists… they hope about the future rather than just revolt as individual entities or tiny groups of friends NOW, not by overthrowing “the system” but just by minimizing participation in the life-sucking thing.

There are little ways here and there to say NO whenever some corporation or government entity or cultural convention or any group of assholes say “This is how we want you to do things”. Maybe it’d introduce vivacity back into the lives of adventurous folk willing to do this.

As far as health goes, as an increasingly achy mid-aged guy, I’ve tried putting health as a priority and found what rousseau found… it’s fucking boring. However, I still must seek health or those aches and pains will get on top of me. So, my solution is: don't make it a priority and become duty-bound. Be active, not for health’s sake but for fun’s sake. I don’t hike to lose calories or tone my body, I hike to breathe the air and commune with trees and see what’s over that hill. I’m saving up for a telescope, so I can take roadtrips to places far from the cities and camp out. Then I’ll wonder at the marvel of the universe at night and go walking under the sun in the day… not to get healthy but cuz my body loves this kind of stuff. Health should be an after-effect of activity. And this is another reason for rebelling against modernity and all its pressures to be sedate. Gym memberships and having to struggle to be healthy are a sad, sad comment on what civilization is: it’s hateful through and through to the body; the square boxes to live in, all the pavement, cars, the screens, everything.

Rebellion can be a path to escape drudgery. I think it's actually necessary to make life more exciting and less civilized... that is, less pinned-in like cows, less compliant, less obedient (with the consequence of that: feeling like a number).

 

[iolo]

... people shared, and didn't expect much ... The great thing is to expect nothing at all and find the few people you can trust: then it is tolerable, even good. This is one of the many reasons capitalism is such a miserable system - the number of people who get pleasure for cheating their neighbours and showing off to the Joneses is extremely small.

Yes. I like this post.

The feeble creatures that firstworld civilization churns out by the billions would think scarcity is awful because they can’t buy stupid shit. But they must work like drones in order to have “the freedom” to buy all that stupid shit, freedom being equated with being surrounded by endless piles of stupid shit. It's kind of a vicious circle... we have all this stupid work to pay the bills and hope to have extra to buy a needless excess of shit, and we rather need to go shopping for that shit just to make the drudge of working seem meaningful. A healthier happier flourishing world without global warming and extinction events in it is possible, if everyone said "Fuck this, I don't want want to work for 'The Man' anymore and try to keep up with the Joneses". But instead of waiting for the revolution it’s better to live as if it has already happened, as much as possible. That’s the mistake of anarchists… they hope about the future rather than just revolt as individual entities or tiny groups of friends NOW, not by overthrowing “the system” but just by minimizing participation in the life-sucking thing.

There are little ways here and there to say NO whenever some corporation or government entity or cultural convention or any group of assholes say “This is how we want you to do things”. Maybe it’d introduce vivacity back into the lives of adventurous folk willing to do this.

As far as health goes, as an increasingly achy mid-aged guy, I’ve tried putting health as a priority and found what rousseau found… it’s fucking boring. However, I still must seek health or those aches and pains will get on top of me. So, my solution is: don't make it a priority and become duty-bound. Be active, not for health’s sake but for fun’s sake. I don’t hike to lose calories or tone my body, I hike to breathe the air and commune with trees and see what’s over that hill. I’m saving up for a telescope, so I can take roadtrips to places far from the cities and camp out. Then I’ll wonder at the marvel of the universe at night and go walking under the sun in the day… not to get healthy but cuz my body loves this kind of stuff. Health should be an after-effect of activity. And this is another reason for rebelling against modernity and all its pressures to be sedate. Gym memberships and having to struggle to be healthy are a sad, sad comment on what civilization is: it’s hateful through and through to the body; the square boxes to live in, all the pavement, cars, the screens, everything.

Rebellion can be a path to escape drudgery. I think it's actually necessary to make life more exciting and less civilized... that is, less pinned-in like cows, less compliant, less obedient (with the consequence of that: feeling like a number).

Well said. For various reasons, I sometimes visit houses in a very well-off, 'successful' area, and all those houses are for show, all clean and unlived-in, and , oh God, so uncomfortable! To hell with the bloody Joneses!

 

[PyramidHead]

Have been thinking lately about how people who tend to over-think tend to be anxious, see problems more often, and have a tendency toward depression and unhappiness. In other words there seems to be at least a bit of a correlation between intelligence.. and just not being that happy.

Looking through the history of the art world you can see this pattern repeated quite often, really bright people who come to the conclusion that life is absurd, not worth living, but trudge through it all anyway.

All that said I believe that over-thinkers are just naturally pre-disposed to see the negative because it helps them survive, but are often completely blind to the positive because their mind isn't primed to look for it, even if they're aware of it sub-consciously.

So I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to tread against the water and look for those reasons for positivity. Why are things actually amazing? What are our reasons to be happy, hopeful, filled with gratitude?

Your question assumes that things are actually amazing, and that there is actually good reason to be hopeful and filled with gratitude. I probably don't have to point out that there are much stronger psychological predispositions to look for the positive side of things than the negative, and the "because it helps them survive" explanation is more apt for optimists than pessimists. Pessimism does not give much of a boost to genetic fitness; believing that everything will turn out okay and that one's efforts are not ultimately in vain is way more effective at carrying one's genes to the next generation. Regardless of who is right, and it may be that no one is right, that's hard to dispute. In other words, everybody's mind is "primed to look for" the positive; it's how we made it this far. Of course, the fact that such an approach has been good for our lineage doesn't mean it's an accurate representation of reality. So, without advancing my contrary opinion on whether life is amazing, I will instead recommend that you reexamine your notion of negative people. You acknowledge in your opening sentence that there is a correlation between intelligence and depression, and that otherwise observant, unbiased thinkers tend to be pessimistic at a higher rate than others. Yet, you immediately dismiss that as a symptom of over-thinking, as if it couldn't be the case that the ability to see things clearly and without prejudice is a feature of both intelligence AND pessimism. You didn't go to any lengths to justify it, you just declared that it must be so; this is a sign that your thought process may need tweaking. This is the philosophy forum, and your post is the equivalent of saying "let's list all the reasons why having free will is great!" There may be some nice reasons, but you won't get much traction before someone of a philosophical bent asks, hang on, what do you mean by free will and why aren't you interested in talking about whether we have it or not? As it stands, I think your question is more appropriate for the Support Fireside.

 

[rousseau]

Your question assumes that things are actually amazing, and that there is actually good reason to be hopeful and filled with gratitude.

That is not true. The only thing my question assumes is that there may be perspectives that pessimists are missing.

I probably don't have to point out that there are much stronger psychological predispositions to look for the positive side of things than the negative, and the "because it helps them survive" explanation is more apt for optimists than pessimists. Pessimism does not give much of a boost to genetic fitness; believing that everything will turn out okay and that one's efforts are not ultimately in vain is way more effective at carrying one's genes to the next generation. Regardless of who is right, and it may be that no one is right, that's hard to dispute. In other words, everybody's mind is "primed to look for" the positive; it's how we made it this far. Of course, the fact that such an approach has been good for our lineage doesn't mean it's an accurate representation of reality. So, without advancing my contrary opinion on whether life is amazing, I will instead recommend that you reexamine your notion of negative people. You acknowledge in your opening sentence that there is a correlation between intelligence and depression, and that otherwise observant, unbiased thinkers tend to be pessimistic at a higher rate than others. Yet, you immediately dismiss that as a symptom of over-thinking, as if it couldn't be the case that the ability to see things clearly and without prejudice is a feature of both intelligence AND pessimism.

That's a good point: being somewhat pessimistic might just be the natural result of seeing things clearly.

You didn't go to any lengths to justify it, you just declared that it must be so; this is a sign that your thought process may need tweaking. This is the philosophy forum, and your post is the equivalent of saying "let's list all the reasons why having free will is great!" There may be some nice reasons, but you won't get much traction before someone of a philosophical bent asks, hang on, what do you mean by free will and why aren't you interested in talking about whether we have it or not? As it stands, I think your question is more appropriate for the Support Fireside.

You state above that people are pre-disposed to look for the positive. I think that's true, but I also think that our natural inclination is to notice problems. This keeps us alive, but it also keeps us anxious. If we see too many problems we'll be 'over-anxious' and likely unhappy, even if our objective reality might not be that bad.

That's what I'm interested in: what perspectives related to objective reality are there which might suggest that things are actually not too bad? Maybe there are none, maybe reality is awful as you suggest, but that's, in general, what I was interested in discussing.

 

[Treedbear]

...
That's what I'm interested in: what perspectives related to objective reality are there which might suggest that things are actually not too bad? Maybe there are none, maybe reality is awful as you suggest, but that's, in general, what I was interested in discussing.

"Life is like a box of dirt with a few chocolates in it." Not everyone is cut out to be like Forest Gump. Nevertheless, when you can look at it objectively, life itself is pretty damn amazing.

 

[Playball40]

It is important to note that there are many people who suffer from anxiety/fear etc., that are NOT depressed. Unfortunately this disorder is often inherited. It is not a self-fulfilling prophecy for them anymore than it is for others with a mental disorder such as depression. Those who suffer from GAD or SAD can be taught coping techniques, but it's not fair to imply they are somehow 'doing it to themselves'.

I already mentioned there are people who have mental issues and they are not entirely responsible for their thoughts.

They're not responsible at all. They can learn coping techniques but it is not a choice to have fear/anxiety.

- - - Updated - - -

It is important to note that there are many people who suffer from anxiety/fear etc., that are NOT depressed. Unfortunately this disorder is often inherited. It is not a self-fulfilling prophecy for them anymore than it is for others with a mental disorder such as depression. Those who suffer from GAD or SAD can be taught coping techniques, but it's not fair to imply they are somehow 'doing it to themselves'.

I'm pretty sure motion is the result of anxiety.

Don't think so. It can be but does not have to be.

 

[PyramidHead]

...
That's what I'm interested in: what perspectives related to objective reality are there which might suggest that things are actually not too bad? Maybe there are none, maybe reality is awful as you suggest, but that's, in general, what I was interested in discussing.

"Life is like a box of dirt with a few chocolates in it." Not everyone is cut out to be like Forest Gump. Nevertheless, when you can look at it objectively, life itself is pretty damn amazing.

Do you mean amazing in the sense of awe-inspiring (an amazing typhoon struck the harbor), or in the sense of incredibly good (that cheeseburger was amazing)?

 

[Playball40]

"Life is like a box of dirt with a few chocolates in it." Not everyone is cut out to be like Forest Gump. Nevertheless, when you can look at it objectively, life itself is pretty damn amazing.

Do you mean amazing in the sense of awe-inspiring (an amazing typhoon struck the harbor), or in the sense of incredibly good (that cheeseburger was amazing)?

A cheeseburger is paradise, not amazing.

 

[rousseau]

Another thought that occurred to me today is that life *can't* be objectively good, because all lives are not equivalent. So the question as originally posed is a bit of a misnomer and can only be subjective to the one doing the perceiving.

If I don't like the properties of the life that I'm living my life can't be satisfying. If I like the properties of the life I'm living my life might just be satisfactory to me.

But within that we could identify objective criteria that might suggest a 'good' life: mental/physical balance, needs met, financial stability, emotional partnerships.. things that are universal human needs that are either being met or unmet.

 

[PyramidHead]

We can look at the best possible human life, but then we have to also inquire about the good and bad features of even that life. The former category has been handled by psychology and the social sciences since Maslow, and we can use empirical research to determine what factors contribute most to human well-being. But the other question is rarely asked.

That's what I'm interested in: what perspectives related to objective reality are there which might suggest that things are actually not too bad? Maybe there are none, maybe reality is awful as you suggest, but that's, in general, what I was interested in discussing.

Fair enough, it's a worthy topic of discussion in that case.

I was thinking about all this yesterday on the long train ride home. The good things in life are almost always engineered intentionally. My favorite things are the creative arts, relaxing with loved ones, and consuming good alcoholic beverages. None of those avenues of experience are immediately available to me in the same way that thirst, discomfort, boredom, or fatigue are. The good things need to be set up in advance, and that tells me they are essentially reactive mechanisms that help us cope with the encroachment of thirst, discomfort, etc. that happens naturally all the time. There are good experiences that occur without warning, like a nice breeze on a very hot day or finding money in an old coat pocket, but these are rare and tend to fall under the same umbrella of relief from (for instance) a very hot day or the ongoing shrinkage of my bank account.

As such, while I can agree that it's great to have a nice whiskey while listening to music with my dogs, I can't ignore the fact that the existence of these goods is an indicator of the normal direction of things. In other words, if the reality we inhabit weren't constantly and aggressively dismantling our bodies and obstructing our goals, we wouldn't need to push back against that tendency by engineering pleasurable experiences. We can argue all day about the balance of positive and negative experiences in even the best life, but the underlying structure of what it means to be alive is more interesting, and at least in my case, I can't see what objective fact of the matter I'm leaving out that would tip me toward optimism. I'm open to suggestions, but they need to provide an alternative account of the good things in life that is more convincing than the reactive model I proposed.

 

[Treedbear]

... Nevertheless, when you can look at it objectively, life itself is pretty damn amazing.

Do you mean amazing in the sense of awe-inspiring (an amazing typhoon struck the harbor), or in the sense of incredibly good (that cheeseburger was amazing)?

I have to go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism for that:

Epicurus believed that what he called "pleasure" was the greatest good, but that the way to attain such pleasure was to live modestly, to gain knowledge of the workings of the world and to limit one's desires. This would lead one to attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from fear as well as an absence of bodily pain (aponia). The combination of these two states constitutes happiness in its highest form.

So yes to both but awe-inspiring is more to the point.

In so far as we are intelligent beings who depend to a large extent on our intellect for survival it is only natural that our sense of amazement should be stimulated by discovery of things new and different. That being said we are trapped within the subjectivity of this experience despite the ability which intelligence provides to view things from an objective, even extra-human perspective. I think that our sense of amazement is derived from the realization of that potential and the confirmation of our natural place in the world.

...

That's what I'm interested in: what perspectives related to objective reality are there which might suggest that things are actually not too bad? Maybe there are none, maybe reality is awful as you suggest, but that's, in general, what I was interested in discussing.

Fair enough, it's a worthy topic of discussion in that case.

I was thinking about all this yesterday on the long train ride home. The good things in life are almost always engineered intentionally. My favorite things are the creative arts, relaxing with loved ones, and consuming good alcoholic beverages. None of those avenues of experience are immediately available to me in the same way that thirst, discomfort, boredom, or fatigue are. The good things need to be set up in advance, and that tells me they are essentially reactive mechanisms that help us cope with the encroachment of thirst, discomfort, etc. that happens naturally all the time. There are good experiences that occur without warning, like a nice breeze on a very hot day or finding money in an old coat pocket, but these are rare and tend to fall under the same umbrella of relief from (for instance) a very hot day or the ongoing shrinkage of my bank account.

As such, while I can agree that it's great to have a nice whiskey while listening to music with my dogs, I can't ignore the fact that the existence of these goods is an indicator of the normal direction of things. In other words, if the reality we inhabit weren't constantly and aggressively dismantling our bodies and obstructing our goals, we wouldn't need to push back against that tendency by engineering pleasurable experiences. We can argue all day about the balance of positive and negative experiences in even the best life, but the underlying structure of what it means to be alive is more interesting, and at least in my case, I can't see what objective fact of the matter I'm leaving out that would tip me toward optimism. I'm open to suggestions, but they need to provide an alternative account of the good things in life that is more convincing than the reactive model I proposed.

To be truly objective it's necessary to realize that intelligence (as much as we like to see it as the pinnacle of evolution) might be a trivial facit of the universe when taken as a whole. But one thing seems plain to me. Reality is defined by what exists. And what exists is that which survives. Life is different in that it survives through evolution. That is, the individual decays but the species persists. Even the information contained in the DNA undergoes change. Decay through mutation is integral to the process.

So in answer to your second post I would point out that life is amazing in that evolution increases complexity in the face of the forces of inanimate nature that draws one toward entropy. And the fact of the matter seems to be that evolution occurs not through the action of will or purpose or planning but by random interactions within an environment. And just as biological life creates ecosystems, intelligence is the product of neurological ecosystems where ideas compete for survival. In that sense biological life is also a product of intelligent design. But an honest engineer would say that design is a process of trial and error including a fair amount of random brainstorming. Not something an omniscient being would need to bother with. But that is the creative process, and for me that provides the purpose that leads to happiness.

 

[PyramidHead]

Do you mean amazing in the sense of awe-inspiring (an amazing typhoon struck the harbor), or in the sense of incredibly good (that cheeseburger was amazing)?

I have to go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism for that:

Epicurus believed that what he called "pleasure" was the greatest good, but that the way to attain such pleasure was to live modestly, to gain knowledge of the workings of the world and to limit one's desires. This would lead one to attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from fear as well as an absence of bodily pain (aponia). The combination of these two states constitutes happiness in its highest form.

So yes to both but awe-inspiring is more to the point.

In so far as we are intelligent beings who depend to a large extent on our intellect for survival it is only natural that our sense of amazement should be stimulated by discovery of things new and different. That being said we are trapped within the subjectivity of this experience despite the ability which intelligence provides to view things from an objective, even extra-human perspective. I think that our sense of amazement is derived from the realization of that potential and the confirmation of our natural place in the world.

...

That's what I'm interested in: what perspectives related to objective reality are there which might suggest that things are actually not too bad? Maybe there are none, maybe reality is awful as you suggest, but that's, in general, what I was interested in discussing.

Fair enough, it's a worthy topic of discussion in that case.

I was thinking about all this yesterday on the long train ride home. The good things in life are almost always engineered intentionally. My favorite things are the creative arts, relaxing with loved ones, and consuming good alcoholic beverages. None of those avenues of experience are immediately available to me in the same way that thirst, discomfort, boredom, or fatigue are. The good things need to be set up in advance, and that tells me they are essentially reactive mechanisms that help us cope with the encroachment of thirst, discomfort, etc. that happens naturally all the time. There are good experiences that occur without warning, like a nice breeze on a very hot day or finding money in an old coat pocket, but these are rare and tend to fall under the same umbrella of relief from (for instance) a very hot day or the ongoing shrinkage of my bank account.

As such, while I can agree that it's great to have a nice whiskey while listening to music with my dogs, I can't ignore the fact that the existence of these goods is an indicator of the normal direction of things. In other words, if the reality we inhabit weren't constantly and aggressively dismantling our bodies and obstructing our goals, we wouldn't need to push back against that tendency by engineering pleasurable experiences. We can argue all day about the balance of positive and negative experiences in even the best life, but the underlying structure of what it means to be alive is more interesting, and at least in my case, I can't see what objective fact of the matter I'm leaving out that would tip me toward optimism. I'm open to suggestions, but they need to provide an alternative account of the good things in life that is more convincing than the reactive model I proposed.

To be truly objective it's necessary to realize that intelligence (as much as we like to see it as the pinnacle of evolution) might be a trivial facit of the universe when taken as a whole. But one thing seems plain to me. Reality is defined by what exists. And what exists is that which survives. Life is different in that it survives through evolution. That is, the individual decays but the species persists. Even the information contained in the DNA undergoes change. Decay through mutation is integral to the process.

So in answer to your second post I would point out that life is amazing in that evolution increases complexity in the face of the forces of inanimate nature that draws one toward entropy. And the fact of the matter seems to be that evolution occurs not through the action of will or purpose or planning but by random interactions within an environment. And just as biological life creates ecosystems, intelligence is the product of neurological ecosystems where ideas compete for survival. In that sense biological life is also a product of intelligent design. But an honest engineer would say that design is a process of trial and error including a fair amount of random brainstorming. Not something an omniscient being would need to bother with. But that is the creative process, and for me that provides the purpose that leads to happiness.

I was with you until the last sentence. To me, the fact that evolution has produced something as complex and self-aware as human beings is certainly amazing, but above all else it is tragic. We have emerged from a fully natural process with the ability to reflect upon it, and in doing so we find that it has burdened us with a great many needs that can never be satisfied. Evolution has made us into beings that long for significance, permanence, and security, because our ancestors survived long enough to reproduce by chasing those things. The universe does not provide any of them, quite the opposite in fact. So, from the get go, we have to deal with the fact that our most basic desires as conscious organisms are destined to be frustrated over and over again. If we hadn't developed our wonderful intelligent brains, we wouldn't have to endure the depression and anxiety that usually accompanies this realization. So much human activity (and as I said earlier, so many of the good things in life) is essentially our way of coping with how reality falls far short of what it has "engineered" us to want.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I was with you until the last sentence. To me, the fact that evolution has produced something as complex and self-aware as human beings is certainly amazing, but above all else it is tragic. We have emerged from a fully natural process with the ability to reflect upon it, and in doing so we find that it has burdened us with a great many needs that can never be satisfied. Evolution has made us into beings that long for significance, permanence, and security, because our ancestors survived long enough to reproduce by chasing those things. The universe does not provide any of them, quite the opposite in fact. So, from the get go, we have to deal with the fact that our most basic desires as conscious organisms are destined to be frustrated over and over again. If we hadn't developed our wonderful intelligent brains, we wouldn't have to endure the depression and anxiety that usually accompanies this realization. So much human activity (and as I said earlier, so many of the good things in life) is essentially our way of coping with how reality falls far short of what it has "engineered" us to want.

It's just a bad case of over-thinking. If the restaurant doesn't propose chicken it's not use ordering chicken with ketchup.
EB

 

[PyramidHead]

I was with you until the last sentence. To me, the fact that evolution has produced something as complex and self-aware as human beings is certainly amazing, but above all else it is tragic. We have emerged from a fully natural process with the ability to reflect upon it, and in doing so we find that it has burdened us with a great many needs that can never be satisfied. Evolution has made us into beings that long for significance, permanence, and security, because our ancestors survived long enough to reproduce by chasing those things. The universe does not provide any of them, quite the opposite in fact. So, from the get go, we have to deal with the fact that our most basic desires as conscious organisms are destined to be frustrated over and over again. If we hadn't developed our wonderful intelligent brains, we wouldn't have to endure the depression and anxiety that usually accompanies this realization. So much human activity (and as I said earlier, so many of the good things in life) is essentially our way of coping with how reality falls far short of what it has "engineered" us to want.

It's just a bad case of over-thinking. If the restaurant doesn't propose chicken it's not use ordering chicken with ketchup.
EB

The analogy is not quite apt, because not everybody is born craving chicken, and there are may be other restaurants that serve it. My point is that we are all predisposed to chase the things that reality either cannot provide (permanence) or is actively in the process of destroying (security, health, order, contentment). We can train ourselves to forego our psychological attachment to these things, but it's not easy and may be impossible to fully acheive. Perhaps a restaurant that doesn't serve water located in the middle of a desert would be a better comparison. Patrons might be able to settle for the warm milk on offer eventually, but it doesn't make the situation any less crappy.