Byrnema, if you took someone who’d just never heard of God to begin with, never heard of any superstitutions, just grew up in a nice materialistic civilization that expected to take over the galaxies someday, and you asked them “What’s left, when God’s gone?” they’d look up at the stars, look back at you, and say, “I don’t understand what you think is missing—it looks to me like everything is there.”
I’m sorry that I failed to convey this, and I do worry that the metaethics sequence failed and will need to be done over. But you can’t say I didn’t try.
You did. I just think it’s crazy to think that no one will ever ask, “what’s the purpose of taking over all these galaxies?”.
I’m also not sure why you mention God specifically. I’m not sure how the existence of a supreme super-power assigning purpose would be any more meaningful—or, really, any different—than the physical laws of the universe assigning purpose.
I just think it’s crazy to think that no one will ever ask, “what’s the purpose of taking over all these galaxies?”
If asked, they might answer along the lines of “so that more people can exist and be happy”; “so that ever more interesting and fun and beautiful patterns can come into being”; “so that we can continue to learn and understand more and more of the strange and wonderful patterns of reality”, etc. None of these are magical answers; they can all be discussed in terms of a (more sophisticated than current) analysis of what these future beings want and like, what their ethics and aesthetics consist of (and yes, these are complicated patterns to be found within their minds, not within some FOV), etc.
What I think is crazy is to reject all those answers and say you can’t in principle be satisfied with any answer that could be different for a different civilization. I think that such dismissals are a mistake along the lines of asking for the final cause or “purpose” of the fact that rocks fall, and rejecting gravity as an insufficient answer because it’s only an efficient cause.
The question itself (“what’s the purpose?”) presupposes the answer. If you’ve never heard of God or superstition, why would you assume that there was any purpose other than just to take over all these galaxies?
I didn’t say anything about a God-shaped hole. You’re reading something different into my question, or maybe trying to cubbyhole my question into a stereotype that doesn’t quite fit.
Whenever I do anything, I have an idea of how that fits into a larger objective. One exception might be activities that I do for simplistic hedonism, but that doesn’t provide the full range of satisfaction and joy that I feel when I feel like I’m making progress in something. The pleasure in the idea of taking over galaxies is very much progress-based, and so it would be natural to ask why this would actually be progress.
Substitute “meaning” for “God”, then. The problem is trying to fit everything into a “larger objective”: whose objective? That’s what I mean when I say you’re presupposing the answer.
Also, “why would taking over galaxies be progress?” can be answered pretty simply once you explain what you mean by “progress”. Technological advancement? Increased wealth? Curiosity?
If I had the catch-all cure to existential angst, I wouldn’t be parroting it on here, I’d be trying to sell it for millions!
Maybe you could call it a hardware problem, since I’d liken it to a virus. You’ve been corrupted to look for a problem when there isn’t one, and you know there isn’t one, but you just don’t feel emotionally satisfied (correct me if I’m wrong here). I don’t have an answer for that. I would suspect that the more you distance yourself from these kinds of views (that the universe must have “meaning” and all that), the question just stops being even relevant. I think the problem just involves breaking a habit.
Before your journey into nihilism, why did you do things?
ETA: Though this discussion focuses on purposes and actions, I wonder if the problem might be, that something about life which was always present for you and providing meaning, no matter what you did, now appears to be absent under all conceivable circumstances.
Byrnema, if you took someone who’d just never heard of God to begin with, never heard of any superstitutions, just grew up in a nice materialistic civilization that expected to take over the galaxies someday, and you asked them “What’s left, when God’s gone?” they’d look up at the stars, look back at you, and say, “I don’t understand what you think is missing—it looks to me like everything is there.”
I’m sorry that I failed to convey this, and I do worry that the metaethics sequence failed and will need to be done over. But you can’t say I didn’t try.
You did. I just think it’s crazy to think that no one will ever ask, “what’s the purpose of taking over all these galaxies?”.
I’m also not sure why you mention God specifically. I’m not sure how the existence of a supreme super-power assigning purpose would be any more meaningful—or, really, any different—than the physical laws of the universe assigning purpose.
If asked, they might answer along the lines of “so that more people can exist and be happy”; “so that ever more interesting and fun and beautiful patterns can come into being”; “so that we can continue to learn and understand more and more of the strange and wonderful patterns of reality”, etc. None of these are magical answers; they can all be discussed in terms of a (more sophisticated than current) analysis of what these future beings want and like, what their ethics and aesthetics consist of (and yes, these are complicated patterns to be found within their minds, not within some FOV), etc.
What I think is crazy is to reject all those answers and say you can’t in principle be satisfied with any answer that could be different for a different civilization. I think that such dismissals are a mistake along the lines of asking for the final cause or “purpose” of the fact that rocks fall, and rejecting gravity as an insufficient answer because it’s only an efficient cause.
The question itself (“what’s the purpose?”) presupposes the answer. If you’ve never heard of God or superstition, why would you assume that there was any purpose other than just to take over all these galaxies?
Whenever you do anything, isn’t it natural to question what you’re doing it for?
That’s not the question you’re asking. There’s no God-shaped hole in answering “because we feel like taking over galaxies” until you put it there.
I didn’t say anything about a God-shaped hole. You’re reading something different into my question, or maybe trying to cubbyhole my question into a stereotype that doesn’t quite fit.
Whenever I do anything, I have an idea of how that fits into a larger objective. One exception might be activities that I do for simplistic hedonism, but that doesn’t provide the full range of satisfaction and joy that I feel when I feel like I’m making progress in something. The pleasure in the idea of taking over galaxies is very much progress-based, and so it would be natural to ask why this would actually be progress.
Substitute “meaning” for “God”, then. The problem is trying to fit everything into a “larger objective”: whose objective? That’s what I mean when I say you’re presupposing the answer.
Also, “why would taking over galaxies be progress?” can be answered pretty simply once you explain what you mean by “progress”. Technological advancement? Increased wealth? Curiosity?
Good. Your comments above now make good sense to me.
That’s my problem. Maybe it’s a problem common to many theists too. Any cures? And is this problem a hardware problem or a logic problem?
If I had the catch-all cure to existential angst, I wouldn’t be parroting it on here, I’d be trying to sell it for millions!
Maybe you could call it a hardware problem, since I’d liken it to a virus. You’ve been corrupted to look for a problem when there isn’t one, and you know there isn’t one, but you just don’t feel emotionally satisfied (correct me if I’m wrong here). I don’t have an answer for that. I would suspect that the more you distance yourself from these kinds of views (that the universe must have “meaning” and all that), the question just stops being even relevant. I think the problem just involves breaking a habit.
Then Robin would have a field day explaining why people did not actually buy it, despite the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth.
Before your journey into nihilism, why did you do things?
ETA: Though this discussion focuses on purposes and actions, I wonder if the problem might be, that something about life which was always present for you and providing meaning, no matter what you did, now appears to be absent under all conceivable circumstances.
I couldn’t make it through the metaethics sequence but I really liked Three Worlds Collide.