Is the pursuit of happiness your most important life goal?

[bascule]

Well, a new report explains what you should do:

 

http://pewresearch.org/social/pack.php?PackID=1

 

From the Boingboing coverage:

 

"Would you like to be happier? Become a rich, married, religious, Republican, white person from the Sunbelt, says this Pew research report."

 

This is why I'm glad to say that pursuing my own personal happiness is not my most important life goal (although I suppose it can be argued that my pursuits are vicariously for my own happiness)

 

Ultimately, underpinning all of my beautiful, teleological, goal-directed pattern seeking nature is atheistic existentialism. From this the core of my belief can be summed up as:

 

I'm a random fluke in the universe. I have no particular purpose except to compute into the whole in the same way that rocks, dirt, and driftwood compute into the whole. There's no supereme being that loves me. There's no divine force trying to preserve me and I could be wiped out at any time by a random fluke. When I'm dead the overwhelmingly most likely scenario is that the emergent effects of my consciousness will vanish from the universe forever. 20 years after I'm dead no one will care.

 

I try to look for reasons to believe otherwise, but those are the conclusions of my inner skeptic, and by far the most rational position I can espouse based on the evidence I've encountered to date.

 

And how bleak that all sounds! No wonder I'm either completely unemotional or melancholy most of the time.

 

But that's how I prefer to have it, because I hate believing lies. I hate what misinformation does to people. I would prefer to be a melancholy liberal atheist than a religious southern conservative, because from my perspective that person is happy from the placebo effect derived from a lie, and I prefer truth to happiness.

 

What about yourself?

[pcs]

Hmm...I think you sold me on the placebo effect.

[starbug1]

I have one question: have you ever wanted to kill yourself? That kind of mentality has got to be overwhelmingly depressing sometimes. And you said yourself you were atheistic existentialist. Wasn't the unlying philsophy something like, instead of "Why kill yourself?" it was "Why not kill yourself?" I know it's personal, just thought I'd ask. I mean all this about melancholy, lies and the placebo effect, looking for happiness in the hard face of truth. It's got to be harrowing.

[pcs]

I have one question: have you ever wanted to kill yourself?

 

Good God, no! Jesus man, that's creepy!

[ecoli]

Good God, no! Jesus man, that's creepy!

 

It's a legitamate question, I think. It's natural to feel depressed and briefly consider going over the age. I'm sure amany people do, though not seriously or for extended amounts of times.

[starbug1]

I was actually directing the question more at bascule because he was the one who expressed the idea in the first place. ...You've got the right idea ecoli, and its not creepy pcs, it's a fact of life, and all too real, so your statement really sounded a bit ...off, to put it nicely.

[pcs]

Oh, I thought you were just asking it out of the blue. My bad. In short, no. Death sucks, hurts too.

[JustStuit]

I think we all have those thoughts once in a while. Some more so than others.

[bascule]

I was actually directing the question more at bascule because he was the one who expressed the idea in the first place

 

Consciousness seeks to create purpose-driven order. If we conclude there is no purpose, what motivation do we have to do anything? The solution is to find the purpose, which for an atheistic existentialist must ultimately be self-defined.

[Sisyphus]

Um, not to blatantly plug my namesake, but have you ever read The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus?

[Edtharan]

If we conclude there is no purpose, what motivation do we have to do anything?

Why must a purpose be that which drives us? I for one derive my motivation from curiosity. There is no other purpose other than what I make up internally.

 

The solution is to find the purpose, which for an atheistic existentialist must ultimately be self-defined.

Not "find", "create" is a better word. Find implies that a purpose exists indapendant of ones self. "Create" is much more of a personal/self defined thing.

[john5746]

Not "find", "create" is a better word. Find implies that a purpose exists indapendant of ones self. "Create" is much more of a personal/self defined thing.

 

Excellent, I like that.

[starbug1]

 

Not "find"' date=' "create" is a better word. Find implies that a purpose exists indapendant of ones self. "Create" is much more of a personal/self defined thing.[/quote']

 

If we "create" then what exactly are we supposed to be creating?

 

If we conclude there is no purpose, what motivation do we have to do anything?

 

Exactly. So does this mean there is no reason to live, there comes no end to deriving a purpose; that is, if we argue and ultimately deny consciousness?

 

The solution is to find the purpose, which for an atheistic existentialist must ultimately be self-defined.

 

By this reasoning there is no reason to live, if otherwise your purpose "created" is one of happiness, then that's the reason. Or it is one of truth, which to our consciousness gains no happiness. An atheistic existentialist must be denied this because he is perpetually running into dead end's for a purpose. Like a random fluke in the universe, right? Do you agree with this? By all means, everything I know and have read about this says there is NO purpose for living with no "driven purpose." And that's why happiness prevails, the "purpose-driven" antidote.

 

ave you ever read The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus?

 

I know the myth and I know what Camus has to say about it. He says exactly what I said above. "Why keep pushing that thing up the hill all day, over and over, for a lifetime?" That's indeed truly the question of life. Why? And that's what I'm asking. If there are devoted atheistic existentialists, and other people who adopt the "Existentialist" doctrines, why do we go on living.

That I'm still trying to figure out.

 

Bascule, this is what I wanted you to answer. What is your purpose, if you feel that way about yourself. You obviously gain pleasure from your life. Reading books, evangalizing singularity, friends, partying. Am I right? The existential atheism is only brought up when thought about. Other times it gets ignored because it is frustratingly endless, and there is no definite satisfaction.

[starbug1]

Consciousness seeks to create purpose-driven order. If we conclude there is no purpose, what motivation do we have to do anything? The solution is to find the purpose, which for an atheistic existentialist must ultimately be self-defined.

 

I suppose what I said would only work if you denied your consciousness completely.

[Edtharan]

If we "create" then what exactly are we supposed to be creating?

A purpose.

 

I maintain that there is no external purpose for existance (including the existance of the universe). The only purpose that can exist for your life is the one you create for your self.

 

The solution is to find the purpose, which for an atheistic existentialist must ultimately be self-defined

I suppose another word that can be used is "Choose", as we can choose to take on another's reson for existance.

[Saryctos]

Automate the world.

Depose the illusion of time.

Bring about a social revolution.

Break the flimsy bonds of mortallity(although the strong ones may still persist).

 

Goals for this life. Many other lives may I see, but I wish to live everyone as if knowing it will be the last.

[padren]

But that's how I prefer to have it' date=' because I hate believing lies. I hate what misinformation does to people. I would prefer to be a melancholy liberal atheist than a religious southern conservative, because from my perspective that person is happy from the placebo effect derived from a lie, and I prefer truth to happiness.

 

What about yourself?[/quote']

 

Well, you have mentioned before that you had a religious upbringing before, so I imagine you've had that first hand experience of the sting those sorts of lies can leave.

Still, - and I don't mean to take this to the extreme of buying religious or pseudoscience junk - don't make the mistake of becoming defensively skeptical. As long as you are aware of it, its quite worth while to take some intellectual risks.

 

The only thing I know I'll get out of this life, is for a while, I get to be aware of some of what all exists. When I think about where we are, and the fact that there even is a universe, and that tiny bits of it can even become aware that it exists for a short time, and that we just happen to be among those bits somehow...I really can't find any way to be melancholy. I am just too dumbfounded to get melancholy.

 

My mindset, is just for a laugh, I'll see where it all goes when I try to do what I can to make the world a little bit better place and enjoy myself. I like to party and waste money because it adds to a perspective you can't get in science textbooks, and I do think its enriching.

 

 

For some people, the idea of no "grand purpose" is like the idea of no "grand freewill" and they feel like they'll loose motivation. But freewill is a matter of perspective anyway, even in a deterministic universe, and the same way you can choose to act as if there is free will in a deterministic universe, you can choose to enjoy yourself. Even if everything we do amounts to sandcastles before the tide, its not that bad to enjoy how amazing it is that we even get to spend a day on the beach.