I'm not prepared to devote my life to pure hedonism. Many times we must engage in the unpleasant because of our morality, and often doing the right thing doesn't feel pleasant at all.
Let me spell things out a little more clearly.
Waking up, going to work, putting effort into existing shows there is an inherent importance to your survival. It does not matter where it comes from. Whether it is from a notion you have a conscious mind or free will or whether it is biologically hardwired from birth, it is there, it is in the facts of reality and the definitions of the words. Your body, your mind your very being places an importance on its survival. It places worth on things. Worth, importance, purpose. These things denote some form of 'meaning', perhaps not a universal, fundamental truth, but in the moment you have meaning, a meaning defined by your being, your choices, decisions, your drive to survive, to exist as you would exist. Your meaning is to obey your being, there is no other way to exist, because if you cease to exist there is nothing to obey and no meaning or lack of meaning exists in the ultimate void of nothingness.
I do not know why people believe meaning must be a universal truth, the very definition has been hijacked by these types of debates. To say there is no meaning would say you have no purpose, to say you have no purpose would be to say you have no biological functions you carry out, that your existence is merely random whims, whether you wake up a serial killer that enjoys murder or something else would have to be entirely random. Purpose is such a misused word. If a human does not have purpose, then nothing has a purpose. Yet it is clear a television was created with purpose. All it can be is that which you use it for, for watching TV, as a paper weight, anything. But it will not fulfill a purpose of transporting you across the universe. What is the purpose of the universe? To be, because that is all it can do, to be what it is. It cannot un-be. You cannot un-be your self, your ego, your individualism. You cannot undo or overcome what your mind and body find important, whether you consciously think you can or not. I could not simply stand up and kill my mother, I would say it is impossible.
So I would argue until the day I die that we are inherently partial. We are not indifferent. No man that exists can be truly indifferent, and to think so is a complete delusion of reality. Even a machine would have a hard time to exist in pure indifference, it has functions that it obeys, but of course it does not have the perception to think about its actions as we do. Why even do things that are pleasant? Why is pleasure or happiness or enjoyment somehow worth seeking out? If they have no meaning, no purpose, none at all, then surely you would have no objection to being murdered. But yes, your biological hard-wiring to stay alive, you'll say. And who can conclude that something with no consciousness cannot have purpose? That is the ultimate mistake of man, to believe that only intelligent design can denote purpose.
In fact, I would say our entire existence is biological. Everything you are and ever will be is hardwired, whether by genetics, upbringing or experience. So your mind, your perception of free will and consciousness, all hardwired. And why can't there be a purpose or meaning in something that is hardwired? Why even have the words at all if they do not exist? If there was a God that made your soul a certain way, made free will exist a certain way, if free will existed in any form or manner, how do those things have any more purpose? They still exist exactly the only way they can exist, physically or metaphysically. All purpose requires is a reason to exist. Well, the reason we exist is because this is how the universe is. It's just that simple. We don't have to have a defined endpoint, a divine creator, our purpose is existing as we are. I don't consider this notion vague at all, nor does it take long to 'find' it. My hard-wiring has caused me to place importance on my life. It is clear, the reality is there, there is no way to dispute this fact unless you dispute reality itself (which some people will do). But in this moment I do not wish to die, my purpose, my reason, my existence, my being, none of it wishes to cease to exist. I can not overcome it with free will or thought, it's what I am. And for any other atheists out there, I imagine when your day to die arrives, you will wish it was postponed, that you had more time, unless you are burdened by suffering and pain, but you would probably wish the suffering and pain itself away as well. To truly accept the void, when it comes, would be akin to losing your desire to survive. And most people cannot overcome this desire except in moments of sacrifice or true suffering. Absent of those things, coupled with a mechanism to survive, and no belief in an afterlife, the person is going to wish death away. I'm simply preemptively wishing it away.
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Topic: Fear of falling asleep (Read 19672 times)