I’m not convinced that perpetual suffering is particularly human. We could be the species of animal that suffers least on an average day, since we have better solutions to hunger and thirst than anyone else and no predator is likely to disembowel us and our offspring in our sleep.
So it seems to me what you’re really doing is questioning the value of (conscious) life itself. Is that right?
It is an old question that has been answered many ways, because no single answer has appealed to everybody. Buddhism is one answer that I particularly dislike but is apparently soothing to many.
To me, an indictment of life itself as not worth living is a reductio ad absurdum of the whole project of reducing the complexity of literally everything to a single one-dimensional utility-disutility scale to which everything is commensurable. (The paperclip maximizer is another.)
My personal supposition is that (conscious) life is an engine that runs on (conscious) suffering to produce (conscious) understanding. And since there are probably innumerable lifeless universes, I’d rather have one with suffering and understanding in it, if only for variety, than prefer another lifeless one. I don’t expect to convince you, I’m just saying this works for me.
Yes, because it has more potential for improvement.
The Earth of a million years ago, where every single animal was fighting for its life in an existence of pain and hunger, was more hellish than the present one, where at least a percent or so are comparatively secure. So that’s an existence proof of hellishness going away.
Emptiness doesn’t go away. Empty worlds evidently tend to stay empty. We now see enough of them well enough to know that.
I’m not convinced that perpetual suffering is particularly human. We could be the species of animal that suffers least on an average day, since we have better solutions to hunger and thirst than anyone else and no predator is likely to disembowel us and our offspring in our sleep.
So it seems to me what you’re really doing is questioning the value of (conscious) life itself. Is that right?
It is an old question that has been answered many ways, because no single answer has appealed to everybody. Buddhism is one answer that I particularly dislike but is apparently soothing to many.
To me, an indictment of life itself as not worth living is a reductio ad absurdum of the whole project of reducing the complexity of literally everything to a single one-dimensional utility-disutility scale to which everything is commensurable. (The paperclip maximizer is another.)
My personal supposition is that (conscious) life is an engine that runs on (conscious) suffering to produce (conscious) understanding. And since there are probably innumerable lifeless universes, I’d rather have one with suffering and understanding in it, if only for variety, than prefer another lifeless one. I don’t expect to convince you, I’m just saying this works for me.
Regarding your last point: is a hellish world preferable to an empty one?
Yes, because it has more potential for improvement.
The Earth of a million years ago, where every single animal was fighting for its life in an existence of pain and hunger, was more hellish than the present one, where at least a percent or so are comparatively secure. So that’s an existence proof of hellishness going away.
Emptiness doesn’t go away. Empty worlds evidently tend to stay empty. We now see enough of them well enough to know that.