Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

McDaniels · 07-15-2011, 07:56 PM

One of the most commonly debated and I suppose kind of stereotypical philosophy questions is "What is the meaning of life". Instead I like to use the phrase "What is the purpose of life"... It means more or less the same thing as why are we here.

I'm a very philosophical guy. I think about this stuff all the time... I hate the fact that I do, but its the way I am.

So my question for you guys is simply that, what is the purpose of life? There is no definitive answer so please keep that in mind. The reason I'm asking this is because my thought has led me to believe that there is no purpose to life and that has actually kind of made me depressed lately.

I'm 19 so I'm still learning and exploring philosophy (through classes at college and on my own). I was introduced to utilitarianism in class first semester and I really started to side with this philosophy later into the second semester.

Basically utilitarianism is the philosophy that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is morally good.

Here is the "purpose of life" thesis that I developed assuming that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is what is good in the world:

The purpose of the lives of all beings is to maximize the pleasures and minimzie the pains of all beings. In other words, all living things should strive to create a universe in which the most pleasure and the least pain is perceived by conscious beings collectively. Note that I say beings, which includes non-humans. I assume that animals experience pleasure and pain, although perhaps to a lesser degree than humans in many cases, but I don't think that humans are necessarily more deserving of pleasurable and pain free lives than animals simply because we are more intelligent (which is what a lot of people seem to believe.)

I accepted this philosophy for a while but then I realized that the perfect universe and therefore the universe all beings should strive towards creating is one in which the most pleasure and least pain is experienced by the most possible conscious beings. So what kind of universe is that? Well I think it would basically be some kind of universe in which brains, or some conscious object capable of perception, is simply stimulated to an emense degree continuously without percieving the world at all (think a brain in a jar that is somehow subjected to an enormous amount of dopamine release) in this scenario you would have vast amounts of conscious beings that are biologically engineered to derive pleasure from certain chemicals being subjected to massive amounts of said chemicals without any perception of the world (no sensory organs).

Obviously that doesn't sound attractive and it doesn't sound like something worth striving towards. So if that isn't the purpose of life then I feel that either there is no purpose to life other than our natural instincts to survive and reproduce or that utilitarianism is in fact wrong but I still agree with the moral philosophy of utilitarianism strongly...

So basically I have this dilemma... The moral philosophy that I believe to be correct leads me to a philosophy of life that my human brain deems not worth striving toward because my brain views a life without sensing to be meaningless.

I feel like my head is about to explode because logic and reason have led me to a conclusion that seems correct yet my brain can't accept it. I can accept a universe in which beings are hooked up to some kind of virtual reality (like the matrix) that creates a world for each individual that would give said individual the maximum pleasure and least pain they can receive, yet I can't accept the jump from that to brains in a jar. This problem is really frustrating me. I hate being the philosophical person that I am because here I am left with an unsolvable problem that does nothing but depresses me. I now think that there is no purpose to life... I should survive, reproduce, and die... And that depresses the hell out of me because I feel like I have nothing to work forward, bettering society is pointless and we should all just overdose on pills and end our meaningless lives... Terrible I know... This is what I think about every single day...

I feel like my brain is designed to seek the answer to this question tirelessly yet there is either no answer or there is an answer that, by virtue of its design, by brain can't accept. Thus I feel like a computer trying to calculate what 2 + 2 is yet in my programming I'm told specifically that the answer cannot be 4.

07-15-2011, 07:56 PM	#1 (permalink)
McDaniels Upright	The Purpose of Life... One of the most commonly debated and I suppose kind of stereotypical philosophy questions is "What is the meaning of life". Instead I like to use the phrase "What is the purpose of life"... It means more or less the same thing as why are we here. I'm a very philosophical guy. I think about this stuff all the time... I hate the fact that I do, but its the way I am. So my question for you guys is simply that, what is the purpose of life? There is no definitive answer so please keep that in mind. The reason I'm asking this is because my thought has led me to believe that there is no purpose to life and that has actually kind of made me depressed lately. I'm 19 so I'm still learning and exploring philosophy (through classes at college and on my own). I was introduced to utilitarianism in class first semester and I really started to side with this philosophy later into the second semester. Basically utilitarianism is the philosophy that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is morally good. Here is the "purpose of life" thesis that I developed assuming that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain is what is good in the world: The purpose of the lives of all beings is to maximize the pleasures and minimzie the pains of all beings. In other words, all living things should strive to create a universe in which the most pleasure and the least pain is perceived by conscious beings collectively. Note that I say beings, which includes non-humans. I assume that animals experience pleasure and pain, although perhaps to a lesser degree than humans in many cases, but I don't think that humans are necessarily more deserving of pleasurable and pain free lives than animals simply because we are more intelligent (which is what a lot of people seem to believe.) I accepted this philosophy for a while but then I realized that the perfect universe and therefore the universe all beings should strive towards creating is one in which the most pleasure and least pain is experienced by the most possible conscious beings. So what kind of universe is that? Well I think it would basically be some kind of universe in which brains, or some conscious object capable of perception, is simply stimulated to an emense degree continuously without percieving the world at all (think a brain in a jar that is somehow subjected to an enormous amount of dopamine release) in this scenario you would have vast amounts of conscious beings that are biologically engineered to derive pleasure from certain chemicals being subjected to massive amounts of said chemicals without any perception of the world (no sensory organs). Obviously that doesn't sound attractive and it doesn't sound like something worth striving towards. So if that isn't the purpose of life then I feel that either there is no purpose to life other than our natural instincts to survive and reproduce or that utilitarianism is in fact wrong but I still agree with the moral philosophy of utilitarianism strongly... So basically I have this dilemma... The moral philosophy that I believe to be correct leads me to a philosophy of life that my human brain deems not worth striving toward because my brain views a life without sensing to be meaningless. I feel like my head is about to explode because logic and reason have led me to a conclusion that seems correct yet my brain can't accept it. I can accept a universe in which beings are hooked up to some kind of virtual reality (like the matrix) that creates a world for each individual that would give said individual the maximum pleasure and least pain they can receive, yet I can't accept the jump from that to brains in a jar. This problem is really frustrating me. I hate being the philosophical person that I am because here I am left with an unsolvable problem that does nothing but depresses me. I now think that there is no purpose to life... I should survive, reproduce, and die... And that depresses the hell out of me because I feel like I have nothing to work forward, bettering society is pointless and we should all just overdose on pills and end our meaningless lives... Terrible I know... This is what I think about every single day... I feel like my brain is designed to seek the answer to this question tirelessly yet there is either no answer or there is an answer that, by virtue of its design, by brain can't accept. Thus I feel like a computer trying to calculate what 2 + 2 is yet in my programming I'm told specifically that the answer cannot be 4.