Comments
EarnestPhilosophy OP t1_j887xes wrote
My intention was to show why everything is not meaningless. The experience of suffering has a quality that is intrinsically bad for any subject that experiences it. This is an objective statement (pinch your skin with your fingernails and you will clearly recognize it). There is no intrinsic value in a value judgement reached through reasoning or "what your emotional state tells you", just like there isn't intrinsic value in a computer deciding what instruction to execute based on input.
Your judgments certainly have instrumental value, as they are a form of attachment which gives rise to positive or negative feelings when things go or don't go as you would prefer them to, and they guide your behavior, which causes feelings to (not) be experienced in you or other sentient beings.
CortezsCoffers t1_j894sfy wrote
Oh, I misread you. Often meaning and purpose are used as synonymous terms. I assumed that's how you were using them, so when you went on for a few paragraphs about how nothing has objective purpose I assumed you also believed that everything is meaningless.
Still, I don't think you've actually presented a good argument for suffering being objectively bad. "Pinch yourself," you say. Well, I did pinch myself. Many times, willingly, even knowing it would hurt, though not to an unreasonable degree. What exactly is that supposed to prove? Is an aversion to something a sign that the something is intrinsically bad according to you?
EarnestPhilosophy OP t1_j89pfwg wrote
Do you think there would be anything of value going on if no one had the ability to feel? Do you think that escaping from danger without feeling anything isn't fundamentally different from being filled with fear during it? What would good and bad even mean if they weren't inextricably tied to pain and pleasure? If feelings didn't and couldn't exist, everything would truly be meaningless. It wouldn't matter at all what you choose to do or what is happening in the world.
[deleted] t1_j834rbc wrote
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SvetlanaButosky t1_j85xxdk wrote
Do you support the benevolent world explorer full Thanos solution then? lol /s
"I will exterminate all life to save them from suffering." lol
On a serious note, suffering cannot be justified by philosophy, it can only be accepted or rejected based on individual circumstances, you can philosophize as much as you want, but when the stage 4 incurable bone cancer hits, many will choose the quick way out.
Its also true that with the right motivation and goals, people can endure a lot of suffering, just look at Nelson Mandela or any wartime soldiers, dissidents and civil rights advocates in authoritarian countries, they may not even see the result of their hard work and suffering, but they do it anyway because they believe it will benefit others after they are long gone.
I think the key takeaway here is possibility, when you have an incurable disease and just suffering to die, there is no possibility for anything good left, so you will prefer to end it. But to suffer for a noble goal that could be achieved in the future, even if you wont live to see it, is a power motivation to keep going, because its not impossible to win, unlike stage 4 incurable bone cancer. lol
Philosophy cannot justify suffering, but the possibility of circumstances can.
CortezsCoffers t1_j85ub2x wrote
>Indeed, it doesn’t matter what causes our emotional state, but it would be a mistake to think that the emotional state has no value. Even in the case of meaninglessness, it’s the sense of meaninglessness—the state of despondency—that is intrinsically bad, not the conclusion itself.
If everything is meaningless then there is no such thing as things that are intrinsically "good" or "bad". These words express human value judgements which vary from person to person, not objective statements that say something about the real qualities of a thing. Within this paradigm you yourself propose, suffering simply is, in the same manner that a frog is simply a frog, not good nor bad. To value these things as either good or bad is to find some meaning in them.
But let's look past this issue for a moment. Your "argument" for suffering being intrinsically bad is, from what I can tell, simply that it is bad because our emotional states tell us it's bad. Let's assume this argument is valid. In that case, we must also grant that most people associate their own existence with a positive emotional state, often even when they're suffering. By the same logic which claims that suffering is intrinsically bad, this would lead us to conclude that existence is intrinsically good. If you disagree then you need to show why it is that we should listen to what our emotional states tell us about suffering, but ignore what they tell us about existence.