this thread makes me think of death note for some reason
i cant be the only one who wanted light to win
i cant be the only one who wanted light to win
The evolutionary definition of good and bad
- Thread starter MattMVS7
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how're you doin'
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actually
bad comes from the greekish word for sheep, "baa", which in of itself comes from the ancient mesopotamian for "bang", the sound the sheep make when they kill a man
meanwhile good comes from the scottish word for goat, the "goot", which comes from the grootese word for holy, or "groot"
ergo people dying is bad and groot is good, hope this explains things
bad comes from the greekish word for sheep, "baa", which in of itself comes from the ancient mesopotamian for "bang", the sound the sheep make when they kill a man
meanwhile good comes from the scottish word for goat, the "goot", which comes from the grootese word for holy, or "groot"
ergo people dying is bad and groot is good, hope this explains things
Dr. Javelin
Nathan Latsk
If your argument is that apathy (anhedonia as you're calling it) is preferable to depression then I can't really argue with that... But consider this:MattMVS7 said:
Apathy has a way of killing the good emotions too.
One of the great things about bad emotions (paradoxical as that statement is) is how they throw into perspective the good emotions. Knowing failure makes success mean something. Knowing sadness makes happiness mean something. Knowing shame makes pride feel something.
I'm not super eloquent so now I'm just gonna post a scene from Lord of the Rings that kind of sums up this perspective (warning: spoilers. listen to audio only if you want to avoid them):
- Thread starter
- #58
My theory to help find a cure for depression
Since my other explanations for my philosophy are way too long, then I will create a summary here. This is my #1 best summary. I explain a way we might discover evidence for it later on. I think my worldview would be called "hedonism." It is a very common worldview where people just want to be happy, have fun, enjoy their lives, etc. It is a worldview that completely leaves out the notion of depressed/anhedonic lives as being any real source of alternative value and worth in a person's life. This means that if a person loses his/her good moods/feelings, then he/she is out of luck and just has to wait until he/she recovers them in order to bring back the good value, worth, joy, happiness, and beauty in his/her life.
However, I extend on this philosophy with my own theory that attempts to validate its "sad but true" outlook. So, I will begin. Our good moods/feelings (states of well being induced by the various feel-good neurotransmitters/chemicals in the brain) are the only experiences that offer us a real perceptual quality of good value, worth, joy, inspiration, happiness, love, and beauty in our lives. It would be no different than how sight is the only experience that can offer us the ability to visualize (see) objects. This is because sight and visualization are the same thing. If you become blind and lose your sight, then you lose your visualization. No outlook, realization, belief, or thought alone can give you your visualization back. It is only once you recover from your blindness that you can see again.
Likewise, a person without his/her good moods/feelings can acknowledge the abstract values that certain situations, works of art, etc. hold and he/she can still believe and think to his/herself that his/her life still has good value/worth to him/her, but that is not the same thing as actually perceiving those values. It would be like having the experience of thinking and acknowledging that 1+1=2 in your head as opposed to the experience of perceiving love, joy, and good value in your life. As you can see here, perceived values in our lives become nothing more than mechanistic perceptual experiences without our good moods/feelings regardless of what we were to believe or think otherwise.
This mechanistic perceptual experience obviously does not meet the human standard. It is simply no way to live at all. That is why there is no way I am going to live a life of depression or anhedonia for any extended length of time. I am doing fine now and no longer have misery and depression in my life. But in the event that it happens to me again, then I would have to find a way to recover within the reasonable time frame of 1-2 years. I can very well live my life the best I can and whatnot while in this depressed/anhedonic state, but this perceptual experience does not meet the human standard. Situations might very well still be good to me and worthwhile to me, but this perceptual experience obviously possesses no quality for my life.
Now, I don't believe in God and the afterlife. I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of God, the afterlife, and the paranormal. But let me give you a Christian analogy to make everything in my writing seem clear to you in case everything I am saying here either seems like nonsensical gibberish or if it all seems flawed. A person can very well acknowledge and believe that God and Jesus are the most magnificent and loving beings. But without the spirit of Jesus/the Holy Ghost within him/her, then this person is just a soulless biological machine. His/her perceptual experience of God's/Jesus' magnificence and love is nothing more than that of a biological machine. Therefore, his/her perceptual experience only meets a soulless biological machine's standard. It does not meet the standard of the Divine.
This person would need to be filled with the Divine Awareness of the Holy Ghost in order to actually perceive God's magnificence and love for what it truly is. This perceptual experience would be that of God and would meet the standard of the Divine. In that same sense, you could consider our good moods/feelings to also be the Divine Awareness that allows us to truly perceive good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness in our lives. Without this Divine Awareness, then our perceptual experience of those terms is nothing more than that of a biological machine. It does not meet the human standard of any perceptual quality of those terms.
This means that you, I, and everyone else can only live our lives as nothing more than biological machines since our good moods/feelings are the higher component to our human experience that we need in our lives. So, our good moods/feelings would actually be the divine spiritual light to our lives that fills us up and allows us to become aware of all the good value/worth in our lives. Likewise, our bad moods/feelings would be a descended form of awareness that allows us to become aware of hellish and horrible experiences as well as bad value in our lives. An experience that is neither a good or bad mood/feeling is nothing more than that of a biological machine.
Given all of this, I conclude that other people are only fooling and deluding themselves due to their conditioning, upbringing, etc. in thinking that a life without good moods/feelings still has perceived good value and worth. My personal experience has led me to this conviction which was a very profound experience in my life. One might easily say that I have no evidence for this and this is all just my opinion. But there could be a way to discover this evidence providing that there really is evidence for it. It would be through neuroscience. I think we know through neuroscience why pain is painful and why heat feels hot to us. We can gain insight into these qualities of experience through neuroscientific technology. Therefore, the same thing would have to be done for the quality of experience that our good moods/feelings possess.
We would have to use neuroscientific technology to find out if the quality of experience that our good moods/feelings possess truly is a quality that gives our lives a real perceptual experience of good value/worth. From there, we would have to look at other perceptual experiences (i.e. our outlooks and mindsets) which so many people are led to believe is truly the only thing that determines whether we perceive our lives to be of good value/worth to us or not. We would have to find out if these experiences possess nothing more than a mechanistic quality or if they really do possess the higher, humanistic quality that would truly give our lives a higher, humanistic perceptual quality of good value/worth in our lives. If neuroscience discovers evidence for my idea, then we would come to realize that our mental well being (good moods/feelings) are truly the only thing that matters.
As long as you are happy and enjoying your life, then that is all that matters. When I say that's all that matters, then I must feel good from that to make it matter to me. The more of a profound and intense good feeling experience you have, the greater perceptual quality of good value/worth you will have in your life. But if you have only a small degree of these good moods/feelings, then you will have a slim degree of perceptual good value/worth. But just because dire situations would hold no value to us without our good moods/feelings, we would still make these choices anyway knowing that they would save our lives and the lives of others. It would be a mechanistic standard of living, but if it is only for a brief moment that would save your life and the lives of others, then it is still on the recommendation list. Actually, it is our bad moods/feelings such as fear, sadness, and misery which would make situations bad and a hellish experience to us. But an experience that is neither a good nor bad mood/feeling cannot give our lives any perception of any good value or bad value.
So, with all of this being said, evolution did not give us the ability to perceive situations as being good and bad to us in the absence of pain (feeling bad) and pleasure (feeling good). Many people and many organisms live their lives and help others of their kind in the absence of their good and bad moods/feelings. However, that is only a mechanistic standard of living that has been wired into us through evolution and it is a mechanistic standard of perceptual good value/worth. It is only through pain and pleasure that we are brought to a higher form of awareness (experience). I would call my definition the evolutionary definition of good and bad since it is evolution that dictates the perceptual value in our lives through pain and pleasure and not us as human beings who do.
To conclude this packet, people would say that there are other forms of ecstasy (good moods/feelings) that one could achieve besides the ones I have described earlier which were states of well being induced by the feel good chemicals. For example, one would say that through meditation and detaching yourself from the hedonistic version of good moods/feelings I've described that one can achieve a higher and enlightened version of a good mood/feeling. However, these other good moods/feelings do not exist. They are, again, nothing more than a mechanistic standard of a good mood/feeling and not any real good mood/feeling that meets the human standard. Therefore, people are only wanting to shove away the real good moods/feelings as though they are something trivial.
People want control over their lives and wish to dictate whatever value, happiness, and good mood/feeling they want to have in their lives. But life doesn't always work out like this. We don't always get what we want in life. Life is unfortunate and, sadly, some things really do have dominance over our lives. It's no different than a situation where you are dying of thirst and you had an empty glass. Redefining the emptiness inside that glass as water will not give you the actual quality of water you would need to save your life. This is the analogy I give for those types of people who think that defining what gives their personal lives value, joy, happiness, beauty, and worth somehow makes it a real perceptual quality in their lives.
Since my other explanations for my philosophy are way too long, then I will create a summary here. This is my #1 best summary. I explain a way we might discover evidence for it later on. I think my worldview would be called "hedonism." It is a very common worldview where people just want to be happy, have fun, enjoy their lives, etc. It is a worldview that completely leaves out the notion of depressed/anhedonic lives as being any real source of alternative value and worth in a person's life. This means that if a person loses his/her good moods/feelings, then he/she is out of luck and just has to wait until he/she recovers them in order to bring back the good value, worth, joy, happiness, and beauty in his/her life.
However, I extend on this philosophy with my own theory that attempts to validate its "sad but true" outlook. So, I will begin. Our good moods/feelings (states of well being induced by the various feel-good neurotransmitters/chemicals in the brain) are the only experiences that offer us a real perceptual quality of good value, worth, joy, inspiration, happiness, love, and beauty in our lives. It would be no different than how sight is the only experience that can offer us the ability to visualize (see) objects. This is because sight and visualization are the same thing. If you become blind and lose your sight, then you lose your visualization. No outlook, realization, belief, or thought alone can give you your visualization back. It is only once you recover from your blindness that you can see again.
Likewise, a person without his/her good moods/feelings can acknowledge the abstract values that certain situations, works of art, etc. hold and he/she can still believe and think to his/herself that his/her life still has good value/worth to him/her, but that is not the same thing as actually perceiving those values. It would be like having the experience of thinking and acknowledging that 1+1=2 in your head as opposed to the experience of perceiving love, joy, and good value in your life. As you can see here, perceived values in our lives become nothing more than mechanistic perceptual experiences without our good moods/feelings regardless of what we were to believe or think otherwise.
This mechanistic perceptual experience obviously does not meet the human standard. It is simply no way to live at all. That is why there is no way I am going to live a life of depression or anhedonia for any extended length of time. I am doing fine now and no longer have misery and depression in my life. But in the event that it happens to me again, then I would have to find a way to recover within the reasonable time frame of 1-2 years. I can very well live my life the best I can and whatnot while in this depressed/anhedonic state, but this perceptual experience does not meet the human standard. Situations might very well still be good to me and worthwhile to me, but this perceptual experience obviously possesses no quality for my life.
Now, I don't believe in God and the afterlife. I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of God, the afterlife, and the paranormal. But let me give you a Christian analogy to make everything in my writing seem clear to you in case everything I am saying here either seems like nonsensical gibberish or if it all seems flawed. A person can very well acknowledge and believe that God and Jesus are the most magnificent and loving beings. But without the spirit of Jesus/the Holy Ghost within him/her, then this person is just a soulless biological machine. His/her perceptual experience of God's/Jesus' magnificence and love is nothing more than that of a biological machine. Therefore, his/her perceptual experience only meets a soulless biological machine's standard. It does not meet the standard of the Divine.
This person would need to be filled with the Divine Awareness of the Holy Ghost in order to actually perceive God's magnificence and love for what it truly is. This perceptual experience would be that of God and would meet the standard of the Divine. In that same sense, you could consider our good moods/feelings to also be the Divine Awareness that allows us to truly perceive good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness in our lives. Without this Divine Awareness, then our perceptual experience of those terms is nothing more than that of a biological machine. It does not meet the human standard of any perceptual quality of those terms.
This means that you, I, and everyone else can only live our lives as nothing more than biological machines since our good moods/feelings are the higher component to our human experience that we need in our lives. So, our good moods/feelings would actually be the divine spiritual light to our lives that fills us up and allows us to become aware of all the good value/worth in our lives. Likewise, our bad moods/feelings would be a descended form of awareness that allows us to become aware of hellish and horrible experiences as well as bad value in our lives. An experience that is neither a good or bad mood/feeling is nothing more than that of a biological machine.
Given all of this, I conclude that other people are only fooling and deluding themselves due to their conditioning, upbringing, etc. in thinking that a life without good moods/feelings still has perceived good value and worth. My personal experience has led me to this conviction which was a very profound experience in my life. One might easily say that I have no evidence for this and this is all just my opinion. But there could be a way to discover this evidence providing that there really is evidence for it. It would be through neuroscience. I think we know through neuroscience why pain is painful and why heat feels hot to us. We can gain insight into these qualities of experience through neuroscientific technology. Therefore, the same thing would have to be done for the quality of experience that our good moods/feelings possess.
We would have to use neuroscientific technology to find out if the quality of experience that our good moods/feelings possess truly is a quality that gives our lives a real perceptual experience of good value/worth. From there, we would have to look at other perceptual experiences (i.e. our outlooks and mindsets) which so many people are led to believe is truly the only thing that determines whether we perceive our lives to be of good value/worth to us or not. We would have to find out if these experiences possess nothing more than a mechanistic quality or if they really do possess the higher, humanistic quality that would truly give our lives a higher, humanistic perceptual quality of good value/worth in our lives. If neuroscience discovers evidence for my idea, then we would come to realize that our mental well being (good moods/feelings) are truly the only thing that matters.
As long as you are happy and enjoying your life, then that is all that matters. When I say that's all that matters, then I must feel good from that to make it matter to me. The more of a profound and intense good feeling experience you have, the greater perceptual quality of good value/worth you will have in your life. But if you have only a small degree of these good moods/feelings, then you will have a slim degree of perceptual good value/worth. But just because dire situations would hold no value to us without our good moods/feelings, we would still make these choices anyway knowing that they would save our lives and the lives of others. It would be a mechanistic standard of living, but if it is only for a brief moment that would save your life and the lives of others, then it is still on the recommendation list. Actually, it is our bad moods/feelings such as fear, sadness, and misery which would make situations bad and a hellish experience to us. But an experience that is neither a good nor bad mood/feeling cannot give our lives any perception of any good value or bad value.
So, with all of this being said, evolution did not give us the ability to perceive situations as being good and bad to us in the absence of pain (feeling bad) and pleasure (feeling good). Many people and many organisms live their lives and help others of their kind in the absence of their good and bad moods/feelings. However, that is only a mechanistic standard of living that has been wired into us through evolution and it is a mechanistic standard of perceptual good value/worth. It is only through pain and pleasure that we are brought to a higher form of awareness (experience). I would call my definition the evolutionary definition of good and bad since it is evolution that dictates the perceptual value in our lives through pain and pleasure and not us as human beings who do.
To conclude this packet, people would say that there are other forms of ecstasy (good moods/feelings) that one could achieve besides the ones I have described earlier which were states of well being induced by the feel good chemicals. For example, one would say that through meditation and detaching yourself from the hedonistic version of good moods/feelings I've described that one can achieve a higher and enlightened version of a good mood/feeling. However, these other good moods/feelings do not exist. They are, again, nothing more than a mechanistic standard of a good mood/feeling and not any real good mood/feeling that meets the human standard. Therefore, people are only wanting to shove away the real good moods/feelings as though they are something trivial.
People want control over their lives and wish to dictate whatever value, happiness, and good mood/feeling they want to have in their lives. But life doesn't always work out like this. We don't always get what we want in life. Life is unfortunate and, sadly, some things really do have dominance over our lives. It's no different than a situation where you are dying of thirst and you had an empty glass. Redefining the emptiness inside that glass as water will not give you the actual quality of water you would need to save your life. This is the analogy I give for those types of people who think that defining what gives their personal lives value, joy, happiness, beauty, and worth somehow makes it a real perceptual quality in their lives.
- Thread starter
- #60
My Hedonistic Logical Argument
1.) Perceiving something to be of good value, worth, joy, beauty, inspiration, love, a heavenly experience, and happiness to you can only be an experience for you that has a good quality. In short, having good value and worth, along with joy, beauty, and happiness in your life is always a good quality of experience (state of mind) no matter how you look at it. Even if you thought that a bad quality of experience was something good to you, then that would presuppose a good quality of experience.
2.) Perceiving something to be of bad value, torment, suffering, a hellish experience, and misery to you can only be an experience for you that has a bad quality. In short, having bad value, along with suffering, misery, and torment in your life is always a bad quality of experience (state of mind) no matter how you look at it. Even if you thought that a good quality of experience was something bad to you, then even that would presuppose a bad quality of experience.
3.) Perceiving something to be of neither good value, worth, bad value, joy, beauty, happiness, suffering, torment, or misery to you can only be an experience for you that has no quality. In short, having neither good value, worth, nor bad value, along with having no suffering, a hellish experience, a heavenly experience, misery, torment, happiness, or beauty in your life is always a neutral quality of experience (state of mind) no matter how you look at it. Even if you thought that a neutral quality of experience was something good or bad to you, then even that would presuppose a good or bad quality of experience.
4.) The quality of experience we have (i.e. good, bad, or neutral) is not a matter of value judgment. This is because qualities are distinct from value judgments. If you judged and believed that an orange was an apple, then that would not change the qualities that this orange has and somehow make it into an apple. Likewise, physical pain possessing a painful quality of experience is not a matter of value judgment either. Physical pain being a painful experience is what makes it physical pain in the first place just as how the qualities of an orange are what make it an orange.
In that same sense, the type of experience we have also dictates whether that experience has a good quality, bad quality, or no quality. As you can see here, it is all about the experiences we have and not about the terms we give to these experiences. It is the experiences that define the terms; not vice versa. We do not define what type of experience we have (i.e. painful, joyful, beautiful, hellish, etc.). Let me give you an example.
If someone was dying of thirst and he/she had an empty glass, then defining the emptiness inside that glass as being water would be nothing more than a term. It would not give this person the actual quality of water to save his/her life. Experience is everything to life. Without it, then we would either be dead or unconscious. A person's experience is very precious and should not be left out of the picture just as how the idea that this person needed an actual quality of water to save his/her life should not be left out of the picture.
5.) Our good moods/feelings (which I define as only being states of well being induced by our brain chemicals/neurotransmitters) are the only experiences that possess the good quality, our bad moods/feelings are the only experiences that possess the bad quality, and a non feeling experience can only possess no quality.
Therefore,
Conclusion: Our good moods/feelings are the only things that can give our lives a real perceptual quality of good value, worth, joy, beauty, a heavenly experience, and happiness, our bad moods/feelings are the only things that can give our lives a perceptual quality of bad value, suffering, misery, agony, a hellish experience, and torment, while it is only experiencing neither our good or bad moods/feelings that can bring our lives a perceptual quality of no value, worth, joy, beauty, suffering, heavenly experience, hellish experience, happiness, love, or misery.
People with a brain defect, brain damage, or low feel-good neurotransmitters due to either drug use, depression, and/or anhedonia are only having positive thoughts that their lives still have good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness to them without their good moods/feelings. But their quality of experience possesses no good quality to give any real perception of good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness to their lives. In other words, they would not be able to actually see the good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness in themselves, others around them, and in their lives.
You might as well consider the value and joy to be nothing more than terms (words/phrases) in a depressed/anhedonic person's life. Depressed/anhedonic people are only fooling and deluding themselves through these positive terms as well as through positive gestures, acts, and tones of voice in thinking their lives have real good value and worth to them. But, again, their actual experience possesses no good quality. They might have a little bit of good moods/feelings to some small degree, but that would only offer them a small quality of perceptual good value/worth perceived in their lives.
Additional delusional factors include conditioning, strength of character, and empathy towards other human beings which would certainly delude an individual into thinking that helping out others, making the best of life, etc. during miserable times would give real good value, worth, and joy to a person's life with no need for any good moods/feelings.
1.) Perceiving something to be of good value, worth, joy, beauty, inspiration, love, a heavenly experience, and happiness to you can only be an experience for you that has a good quality. In short, having good value and worth, along with joy, beauty, and happiness in your life is always a good quality of experience (state of mind) no matter how you look at it. Even if you thought that a bad quality of experience was something good to you, then that would presuppose a good quality of experience.
2.) Perceiving something to be of bad value, torment, suffering, a hellish experience, and misery to you can only be an experience for you that has a bad quality. In short, having bad value, along with suffering, misery, and torment in your life is always a bad quality of experience (state of mind) no matter how you look at it. Even if you thought that a good quality of experience was something bad to you, then even that would presuppose a bad quality of experience.
3.) Perceiving something to be of neither good value, worth, bad value, joy, beauty, happiness, suffering, torment, or misery to you can only be an experience for you that has no quality. In short, having neither good value, worth, nor bad value, along with having no suffering, a hellish experience, a heavenly experience, misery, torment, happiness, or beauty in your life is always a neutral quality of experience (state of mind) no matter how you look at it. Even if you thought that a neutral quality of experience was something good or bad to you, then even that would presuppose a good or bad quality of experience.
4.) The quality of experience we have (i.e. good, bad, or neutral) is not a matter of value judgment. This is because qualities are distinct from value judgments. If you judged and believed that an orange was an apple, then that would not change the qualities that this orange has and somehow make it into an apple. Likewise, physical pain possessing a painful quality of experience is not a matter of value judgment either. Physical pain being a painful experience is what makes it physical pain in the first place just as how the qualities of an orange are what make it an orange.
In that same sense, the type of experience we have also dictates whether that experience has a good quality, bad quality, or no quality. As you can see here, it is all about the experiences we have and not about the terms we give to these experiences. It is the experiences that define the terms; not vice versa. We do not define what type of experience we have (i.e. painful, joyful, beautiful, hellish, etc.). Let me give you an example.
If someone was dying of thirst and he/she had an empty glass, then defining the emptiness inside that glass as being water would be nothing more than a term. It would not give this person the actual quality of water to save his/her life. Experience is everything to life. Without it, then we would either be dead or unconscious. A person's experience is very precious and should not be left out of the picture just as how the idea that this person needed an actual quality of water to save his/her life should not be left out of the picture.
5.) Our good moods/feelings (which I define as only being states of well being induced by our brain chemicals/neurotransmitters) are the only experiences that possess the good quality, our bad moods/feelings are the only experiences that possess the bad quality, and a non feeling experience can only possess no quality.
Therefore,
Conclusion: Our good moods/feelings are the only things that can give our lives a real perceptual quality of good value, worth, joy, beauty, a heavenly experience, and happiness, our bad moods/feelings are the only things that can give our lives a perceptual quality of bad value, suffering, misery, agony, a hellish experience, and torment, while it is only experiencing neither our good or bad moods/feelings that can bring our lives a perceptual quality of no value, worth, joy, beauty, suffering, heavenly experience, hellish experience, happiness, love, or misery.
People with a brain defect, brain damage, or low feel-good neurotransmitters due to either drug use, depression, and/or anhedonia are only having positive thoughts that their lives still have good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness to them without their good moods/feelings. But their quality of experience possesses no good quality to give any real perception of good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness to their lives. In other words, they would not be able to actually see the good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness in themselves, others around them, and in their lives.
You might as well consider the value and joy to be nothing more than terms (words/phrases) in a depressed/anhedonic person's life. Depressed/anhedonic people are only fooling and deluding themselves through these positive terms as well as through positive gestures, acts, and tones of voice in thinking their lives have real good value and worth to them. But, again, their actual experience possesses no good quality. They might have a little bit of good moods/feelings to some small degree, but that would only offer them a small quality of perceptual good value/worth perceived in their lives.
Additional delusional factors include conditioning, strength of character, and empathy towards other human beings which would certainly delude an individual into thinking that helping out others, making the best of life, etc. during miserable times would give real good value, worth, and joy to a person's life with no need for any good moods/feelings.
Red Barchetta
Talk less, smile more.
Re: My Hedonistic Logical Argument
>
>
Re: My Hedonistic Logical Argument
mrw mattmvs7 makes a new thread
mrw mattmvs7 makes a new thread
MattMVS7 said:
DragonFreak
Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly!
Re: My Hedonistic Logical Argument
Please for the love of good values keep these at deviantart.
Please for the love of good values keep these at deviantart.
Re: My Hedonistic Logical Argument
I have to say, I am not very fond of how you're diluting this valuable wisdom by spreading it all over the forum.
Is there a way you could give us a more... focused burst of these good values, like, by putting them all into one thread?
I have to say, I am not very fond of how you're diluting this valuable wisdom by spreading it all over the forum.
Is there a way you could give us a more... focused burst of these good values, like, by putting them all into one thread?
- Thread starter
- #70
To basically sum up my worldview in one statement, my good moods/feelings are very profound, powerful, and beautiful experiences for me. This is not a matter of value judgment. These good moods/feelings themselves truly have this profound and beautiful quality. I look at the experiences themselves and truly see what they are. I do not project any value judgments upon them. As a matter of fact, according to my view, value judgments do not exist and it is only our moods/feelings that possess value giving qualities. But like I was saying, any given experience in the absence of my good moods/feelings truly possesses no good value giving quality to my life. These are experiences that can give no joy, beauty, good value, worth, inspiration, or happiness to my life. Again, this is not a matter of value judgment on my part.
DragonFreak
Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly!
Same for literally everyone else.MattMVS7 said:
Specific Neptune
how're you doin'
- Pronouns
- Any
Re: My theory to help find a cure for depression
>creates a summary
>summary is just as long, if not longer, than his original explanations
>claims his explanations are way too longMattMVS7 said:
>creates a summary
>summary is just as long, if not longer, than his original explanations
- Thread starter
- #73
Re: My theory to help find a cure for depression
Actually, the summary I made is still much shorter than my other explanations because it would be no different than a situation where you had one big huge fluff of cotton candy. It might look very big, but if you were to shrink it down either by squishing it or by some other means, then it would actually be very small. So, this is the analogy I give here.
Lord Buckethead said:>claims his explanations are way too longMattMVS7 said:
>creates a summary
>summary is just as long, if not longer, than his original explanations
Actually, the summary I made is still much shorter than my other explanations because it would be no different than a situation where you had one big huge fluff of cotton candy. It might look very big, but if you were to shrink it down either by squishing it or by some other means, then it would actually be very small. So, this is the analogy I give here.
- Thread starter
- #74
I wish to share to you and others my hypothesis/philosophy. It is something based upon my own personal and profound experiences. However, it will also need some explaining to clarify some things. There could be a way to discover evidence for it if there really is evidence out there for it. But I am not sure how that could be done. So, I will now go ahead and present to you my hypothesis/philosophy and the explanation along with it. I don't care if others think it is complete nonsense. It is just my own personal conviction and I just wish to share it to you and others to gve you, others, my therapist, etc. insight into who I am, how I think, and what my values are. Although, I would highly recommend reading the whole explanation since it gives more insight. If you don't have time to, then just read my hypothesis/philosophy:
Hypothesis/Philosophy: Our good moods/feelings (which I define as the states of well being induced by the various feel-good neurotransmitters/chemicals in the brain) are the only things that can give our lives a real perceptual quality (experience) of good value, worth, joy, beauty, love, inspiration, and happiness. A person cannot become perceptually aware of these qualities without his/her good moods/feelings since, again, our good moods/feelings are the perceptual awareness of these qualities.
Explanation: I don't think that we define our experiences through our value judgments. I think it is the other way around. I think it is our experiences that determine whether we have an experience that is hell, beautiful, joyful, good, bad, etc. I don't agree that life is about what we judge. I think it is about what we experience. So, I think it's what's on the inside that counts. Like I said before, according to my hypothesis, it would only be the good and bad moods/feelings that give us these joyful, beautiful, horrible, hellish, etc. qualities of experience. Moments where you are experiencing your good moods/feelings are moments where you are perceiving good value/worth in your life. Moments where you are experiencing your bad moods/feelings are moments where you are perceiving bad value in your life. Lastly, experiencing neither good or bad moods/feelings are moments where you perceive no value/no worth in your life. The profoundness and intensity of our good and bad moods/feelings dictates the level of perceptual value. If you experienced the most powerful bliss of your life, then you would be perceiving the most powerful good value/worth of your life. But if you experienced a very slim amount of good moods/feelings, then that would only offer you a small perceptual awareness of good value/worth in your life.
What we consider to be value judgments are actually qualities of experience (our good and bad moods/feelings) and not value judgments at all. This means that a beautiful experience is synonymous with a good mood/feeling experience just as how sight is synonymous with visualization since they are the same thing. This is a new definition of these terms I have created. Other definitions do still exist. For example, people still possess great talents and famous paintings are still beautiful works of art. However, we cannot actually perceive these talents/works of art as being anything good, beautiful, and worthwhile without our good moods/feelings. It would be no different than a situation where a blind person can very well believe sight exists and acknowledge its existence. But he/she can't actually see. Our perceived values do not come about through judgments and from simply acknowledging that things are beautiful and have good value to us in our lives. So, even though other definitions of value and beauty still exist, this new perceptual definition I have come up with is the only definition that can allow us to actually see the good value, worth, and beauty that these things in our lives hold.
If we lived in a world where experiences themselves are neither horrible nor beautiful and it was all just a matter of value judgment judging our experiences as horrible and beautiful, then that would be absolutely nothing compared to a world where experiences themselves truly were horrible and beautiful. To have an experience that is literally horrible/beautiful would be the ultimate experience of your life. You would truly know what it is like to be a higher form of a conscious entity (being) as opposed to a mere conscious entity that makes judgments. You would be an experiencing entity rather than a judging entity. You would truly know what it is like to experience hell and paradise as opposed to making mere judgments. However, we already are these experiencing entities and people are just too caught up in insisting that they are instead the judging entities. Let's pretend that there were two separate universes. Universe #1 is a universe where beautiful/horrible experiences do not exist and that perceiving good value, horrible value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness is nothing more than a matter of value judgment. However, in universe #2, these qualities are actual experiences for the individual. The individual is able to literally have experiences that yield these qualities.
He/she is able to experience, what he/she metaphorically describes as, the "divine light" which is an experience that gives him/her the perceptual awareness of good value/worth in his/her life. The perceptual awareness of good value/worth that universe #1 offers is nothing more than just a mere judgment. But universe #2 offers a transcended form of awareness that beats universe #1's out of the water. By the standard of universe #2, the perceptual awareness of these values/qualities that exist in universe #1 would be nothing. It would be like comparing a universe that consists of machines with mechanistic qualities versus a universe that consists of human beings with higher, humanistic qualities such as love and joy. I am the being of universe #2 and I need a form of awareness that meets my standard of perceptual good value/worth. That would obviously be through my good moods/feelings. As a matter of fact, I think we are all beings of universe #2 and that the standard of perceptual good value/worth we currently believe in and live by is nothing. It does not meet any human standard at all even though we currently do not realize it. That is why we need an awakening to the New Age Hedonistic values I talk about. That will allow us to be awakened to a standard of perceptual good value/worth that was truly meant for us as human beings and is truly who we are as human beings.
Imagine if a person was in the worst possible state of hellish torment of his/her life. He/she reports back to you that it was the most horrible and hellish experience of his/her life. From there, you just say to this person that he/she is using nothing more than value judgments. The person becomes very frustrated and angry at you because you are not seeing his/her experience for what it truly was. This experience truly was the most horrible, hellish, and tormenting experience of his/her life and you would be doing nothing more than dismissing what it is that he/she truly experienced. Likewise, people who have the most powerful and profound blissful/heavenly near death experiences would report to you that it was not just some very blissful journey. They would say that they have experienced the most powerful and profound joy, beauty, and love of their life. So, this would actually be a whole new definition of those terms (qualities). I think this definition really does exist contrary to what others say in an attempt to dismiss a person's experience for what it truly was. However, like I said, I think this definition only applies to our good and bad moods/feelings and doesn't apply to other experiences that people have reported to also be beautiful, tormenting, hellish, etc.
Actually, I am very well open to the possibility that my definition also applies to other experiences besides just the good and bad moods/feelings. It's just that I really object to this idea because I have lived most of my life depressed/miserable from traumatic life events and ocd thoughts. I have never perceived any real quality of beauty, joy, good value, and worth in my life living this way. That is why I am fed up with this whole idea that my life can be good, worth living, beautiful, etc. to me living that way. But continuing on here. People are living their lives by these external value judgments. They think that it is instead what they judge that determines whether the experience they have is beautiful, joyful, good, bad, etc. But that is like judging a book by its cover and not actually looking deep inside to know the actual story for what it truly is. In other words, these external value judgments have people focused away from the truthiness of their inner experience. It is as though people are focused on external things and obligations rather than looking deep inside and seeing what their inner experience truly is. How can one leave out his/her inner experience? Experience (consciousness) is so precious. It is everything to life and being human. Without it, then we would either be dead or unconscious.
I will give you another example. When I am experiencing the most beautiful feelings of my life, then people would come up to me and say:
"What's the big deal? Good moods/feelings are nothing more than some happy feel-good chemicals in the brain. There is nothing special about them. I have far more greater things to live for than this."
As you can see here, people are focusing on things and looking at my good moods/feelings on the surface. But they are not looking at my actual experience here. This is further proof that people are only focusing on external obligations, duties, and are looking at things from a purely conceptual point of view. But they do not look at things from an experiential point of view. As long as we live our lives by value judgments and think that it is us as human beings who determine what type of experience we have through our personal judgments, then our experience takes the back seat while these value judgments become the primary factor in determining the value of our life's experience. But my intention is to reverse this. What I am doing here is putting experience in the front seat and setting aside these value judgments.
As long as we live our lives by value judgments and think that it is us as human beings who determine what type of experience we have through our personal judgments, then our experience takes the back seat while these value judgments become the primary factor in determining the value of our life's experience. But my intention is to reverse this. What I am doing here is putting experience in the front seat and setting aside these value judgments. As for why I don't have any positive emotional response, it is because all my positive emotions (good moods/feelings) get completely turned off during emotionally traumatic events in my life that put me in a state of complete hopelessness and misery. That is not my fault and is something that just happens. My brain completely turns off all those positive emotions. But once I fully recover from these miserable events, then all my positive emotions return back to me again. As for deluding oneself, the most harmful and cruel sociopath can think and believe that he/she loves his/her family, but he/she has no idea what love is. He/she would not be perceiving any real love towards his/her family at all. In that same sense, people just have no idea what good value, worth, joy, beauty, inspiration, and happiness really are.
They would not be perceiving any of those qualities without their good moods/feelings. Couldn't it really be possible that my view really does apply to all human beings though? There might truly be only one way of obtaining this perceptual quality of good value/worth in our lives just as how there is truly only one way to see and hear. We can't have sight when we are blind and we can't have hearing when we are deaf. Therefore, I think that this whole notion of my worldview applying to everybody could very well be true. There are truly things in this world which can only be one way. Sometimes in life, we can't have things our own way. Continuing on here. If the exact same experience that the person reported as hellish and horrible was an experience for you that you reported as just being unpleasant and nothing more, then this can only be because the experience was different for you. It is not a matter of value judgment. However, if the experience truly was the same for you and the other person, then you would have to be blinded from your own inner experience. You would not be able to see that it truly was a horrible and hellish experience.
Let me give you an example here. If there was someone truly innocent and beautiful on the inside who had a daunting appearance, then one could easily project a value judgment upon him/her and think that he/she is an ugly person. However, he/she would not realize that this person is truly beautiful on the inside. This is a general rule of life. It even applies to our own experiences. Just because you judge an experience to be beautiful, hell, or joyful does not make it so. You have to truly see the experience for what it is on the inside. Only then can you truly see the experience for what it is. Let me give you another example here. Let's pretend that someone was burning alive in a lake of fire forever which would be the Christian doctrine of hell. Just go with this pretend situation anyway even if you are a non believer in these things because this analogy makes the point I am trying to make. If this person, while burning alive forever, screamed:
"Please get me out of here! I am suffering through the absolute worst hell!"
Imagine from there you said to this person:
"That is just a matter of your value judgment, sir. You will be just fine in that lake of fire. Just judge this experience as something beautiful and it will become an eternal beautiful paradise for you."
As you can see here, this is the exact same attitude other people are displaying towards me when I struggle with the absolute worst hellish misery, depression, and despair of my life due to an emotionally traumatic life event or ocd thoughts. These people do not realize that such miserable experiences truly possess a horrible quality to them that yield a perceptual experience that makes my life the absolute worst hell completely empty and devoid of any good value/worth. If I was just sitting there with absolutely no experience of any good or bad moods/feelings whatsoever and I thought to myself and believed that I was having the absolute worst hellish experience of my life, then this experience would possess a quality to it which wouldn't be anything at all.
The thought that I am having a hellish experience would certainly be there. However, the quality of experience I would be having would possess a completely neutral quality that would yield no real perceptual experience of any hellish or horrible experience. I realize that thoughts alone are experiences. But since thoughts alone possess a completely neutral quality of experience, then they can offer our lives no real hellish or horrible experience. At least, that has definitely been the case with me. But let's pretend that all of my thoughts were completely disabled so that I could not make any value judgments whatsoever. How do people react to things they judge to be horrible and hellish to them? They react in such a way that displays negative tones, acts, and gestures. If you were to, for example, saw my limbs off when all of my thinking faculties are completely turned off, I would still display negative tones, acts, and gestures which would clearly indicate that I am in pain.
*NOTE TO READER: POST CONTINUED BELOW*
Hypothesis/Philosophy: Our good moods/feelings (which I define as the states of well being induced by the various feel-good neurotransmitters/chemicals in the brain) are the only things that can give our lives a real perceptual quality (experience) of good value, worth, joy, beauty, love, inspiration, and happiness. A person cannot become perceptually aware of these qualities without his/her good moods/feelings since, again, our good moods/feelings are the perceptual awareness of these qualities.
Explanation: I don't think that we define our experiences through our value judgments. I think it is the other way around. I think it is our experiences that determine whether we have an experience that is hell, beautiful, joyful, good, bad, etc. I don't agree that life is about what we judge. I think it is about what we experience. So, I think it's what's on the inside that counts. Like I said before, according to my hypothesis, it would only be the good and bad moods/feelings that give us these joyful, beautiful, horrible, hellish, etc. qualities of experience. Moments where you are experiencing your good moods/feelings are moments where you are perceiving good value/worth in your life. Moments where you are experiencing your bad moods/feelings are moments where you are perceiving bad value in your life. Lastly, experiencing neither good or bad moods/feelings are moments where you perceive no value/no worth in your life. The profoundness and intensity of our good and bad moods/feelings dictates the level of perceptual value. If you experienced the most powerful bliss of your life, then you would be perceiving the most powerful good value/worth of your life. But if you experienced a very slim amount of good moods/feelings, then that would only offer you a small perceptual awareness of good value/worth in your life.
What we consider to be value judgments are actually qualities of experience (our good and bad moods/feelings) and not value judgments at all. This means that a beautiful experience is synonymous with a good mood/feeling experience just as how sight is synonymous with visualization since they are the same thing. This is a new definition of these terms I have created. Other definitions do still exist. For example, people still possess great talents and famous paintings are still beautiful works of art. However, we cannot actually perceive these talents/works of art as being anything good, beautiful, and worthwhile without our good moods/feelings. It would be no different than a situation where a blind person can very well believe sight exists and acknowledge its existence. But he/she can't actually see. Our perceived values do not come about through judgments and from simply acknowledging that things are beautiful and have good value to us in our lives. So, even though other definitions of value and beauty still exist, this new perceptual definition I have come up with is the only definition that can allow us to actually see the good value, worth, and beauty that these things in our lives hold.
If we lived in a world where experiences themselves are neither horrible nor beautiful and it was all just a matter of value judgment judging our experiences as horrible and beautiful, then that would be absolutely nothing compared to a world where experiences themselves truly were horrible and beautiful. To have an experience that is literally horrible/beautiful would be the ultimate experience of your life. You would truly know what it is like to be a higher form of a conscious entity (being) as opposed to a mere conscious entity that makes judgments. You would be an experiencing entity rather than a judging entity. You would truly know what it is like to experience hell and paradise as opposed to making mere judgments. However, we already are these experiencing entities and people are just too caught up in insisting that they are instead the judging entities. Let's pretend that there were two separate universes. Universe #1 is a universe where beautiful/horrible experiences do not exist and that perceiving good value, horrible value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness is nothing more than a matter of value judgment. However, in universe #2, these qualities are actual experiences for the individual. The individual is able to literally have experiences that yield these qualities.
He/she is able to experience, what he/she metaphorically describes as, the "divine light" which is an experience that gives him/her the perceptual awareness of good value/worth in his/her life. The perceptual awareness of good value/worth that universe #1 offers is nothing more than just a mere judgment. But universe #2 offers a transcended form of awareness that beats universe #1's out of the water. By the standard of universe #2, the perceptual awareness of these values/qualities that exist in universe #1 would be nothing. It would be like comparing a universe that consists of machines with mechanistic qualities versus a universe that consists of human beings with higher, humanistic qualities such as love and joy. I am the being of universe #2 and I need a form of awareness that meets my standard of perceptual good value/worth. That would obviously be through my good moods/feelings. As a matter of fact, I think we are all beings of universe #2 and that the standard of perceptual good value/worth we currently believe in and live by is nothing. It does not meet any human standard at all even though we currently do not realize it. That is why we need an awakening to the New Age Hedonistic values I talk about. That will allow us to be awakened to a standard of perceptual good value/worth that was truly meant for us as human beings and is truly who we are as human beings.
Imagine if a person was in the worst possible state of hellish torment of his/her life. He/she reports back to you that it was the most horrible and hellish experience of his/her life. From there, you just say to this person that he/she is using nothing more than value judgments. The person becomes very frustrated and angry at you because you are not seeing his/her experience for what it truly was. This experience truly was the most horrible, hellish, and tormenting experience of his/her life and you would be doing nothing more than dismissing what it is that he/she truly experienced. Likewise, people who have the most powerful and profound blissful/heavenly near death experiences would report to you that it was not just some very blissful journey. They would say that they have experienced the most powerful and profound joy, beauty, and love of their life. So, this would actually be a whole new definition of those terms (qualities). I think this definition really does exist contrary to what others say in an attempt to dismiss a person's experience for what it truly was. However, like I said, I think this definition only applies to our good and bad moods/feelings and doesn't apply to other experiences that people have reported to also be beautiful, tormenting, hellish, etc.
Actually, I am very well open to the possibility that my definition also applies to other experiences besides just the good and bad moods/feelings. It's just that I really object to this idea because I have lived most of my life depressed/miserable from traumatic life events and ocd thoughts. I have never perceived any real quality of beauty, joy, good value, and worth in my life living this way. That is why I am fed up with this whole idea that my life can be good, worth living, beautiful, etc. to me living that way. But continuing on here. People are living their lives by these external value judgments. They think that it is instead what they judge that determines whether the experience they have is beautiful, joyful, good, bad, etc. But that is like judging a book by its cover and not actually looking deep inside to know the actual story for what it truly is. In other words, these external value judgments have people focused away from the truthiness of their inner experience. It is as though people are focused on external things and obligations rather than looking deep inside and seeing what their inner experience truly is. How can one leave out his/her inner experience? Experience (consciousness) is so precious. It is everything to life and being human. Without it, then we would either be dead or unconscious.
I will give you another example. When I am experiencing the most beautiful feelings of my life, then people would come up to me and say:
"What's the big deal? Good moods/feelings are nothing more than some happy feel-good chemicals in the brain. There is nothing special about them. I have far more greater things to live for than this."
As you can see here, people are focusing on things and looking at my good moods/feelings on the surface. But they are not looking at my actual experience here. This is further proof that people are only focusing on external obligations, duties, and are looking at things from a purely conceptual point of view. But they do not look at things from an experiential point of view. As long as we live our lives by value judgments and think that it is us as human beings who determine what type of experience we have through our personal judgments, then our experience takes the back seat while these value judgments become the primary factor in determining the value of our life's experience. But my intention is to reverse this. What I am doing here is putting experience in the front seat and setting aside these value judgments.
As long as we live our lives by value judgments and think that it is us as human beings who determine what type of experience we have through our personal judgments, then our experience takes the back seat while these value judgments become the primary factor in determining the value of our life's experience. But my intention is to reverse this. What I am doing here is putting experience in the front seat and setting aside these value judgments. As for why I don't have any positive emotional response, it is because all my positive emotions (good moods/feelings) get completely turned off during emotionally traumatic events in my life that put me in a state of complete hopelessness and misery. That is not my fault and is something that just happens. My brain completely turns off all those positive emotions. But once I fully recover from these miserable events, then all my positive emotions return back to me again. As for deluding oneself, the most harmful and cruel sociopath can think and believe that he/she loves his/her family, but he/she has no idea what love is. He/she would not be perceiving any real love towards his/her family at all. In that same sense, people just have no idea what good value, worth, joy, beauty, inspiration, and happiness really are.
They would not be perceiving any of those qualities without their good moods/feelings. Couldn't it really be possible that my view really does apply to all human beings though? There might truly be only one way of obtaining this perceptual quality of good value/worth in our lives just as how there is truly only one way to see and hear. We can't have sight when we are blind and we can't have hearing when we are deaf. Therefore, I think that this whole notion of my worldview applying to everybody could very well be true. There are truly things in this world which can only be one way. Sometimes in life, we can't have things our own way. Continuing on here. If the exact same experience that the person reported as hellish and horrible was an experience for you that you reported as just being unpleasant and nothing more, then this can only be because the experience was different for you. It is not a matter of value judgment. However, if the experience truly was the same for you and the other person, then you would have to be blinded from your own inner experience. You would not be able to see that it truly was a horrible and hellish experience.
Let me give you an example here. If there was someone truly innocent and beautiful on the inside who had a daunting appearance, then one could easily project a value judgment upon him/her and think that he/she is an ugly person. However, he/she would not realize that this person is truly beautiful on the inside. This is a general rule of life. It even applies to our own experiences. Just because you judge an experience to be beautiful, hell, or joyful does not make it so. You have to truly see the experience for what it is on the inside. Only then can you truly see the experience for what it is. Let me give you another example here. Let's pretend that someone was burning alive in a lake of fire forever which would be the Christian doctrine of hell. Just go with this pretend situation anyway even if you are a non believer in these things because this analogy makes the point I am trying to make. If this person, while burning alive forever, screamed:
"Please get me out of here! I am suffering through the absolute worst hell!"
Imagine from there you said to this person:
"That is just a matter of your value judgment, sir. You will be just fine in that lake of fire. Just judge this experience as something beautiful and it will become an eternal beautiful paradise for you."
As you can see here, this is the exact same attitude other people are displaying towards me when I struggle with the absolute worst hellish misery, depression, and despair of my life due to an emotionally traumatic life event or ocd thoughts. These people do not realize that such miserable experiences truly possess a horrible quality to them that yield a perceptual experience that makes my life the absolute worst hell completely empty and devoid of any good value/worth. If I was just sitting there with absolutely no experience of any good or bad moods/feelings whatsoever and I thought to myself and believed that I was having the absolute worst hellish experience of my life, then this experience would possess a quality to it which wouldn't be anything at all.
The thought that I am having a hellish experience would certainly be there. However, the quality of experience I would be having would possess a completely neutral quality that would yield no real perceptual experience of any hellish or horrible experience. I realize that thoughts alone are experiences. But since thoughts alone possess a completely neutral quality of experience, then they can offer our lives no real hellish or horrible experience. At least, that has definitely been the case with me. But let's pretend that all of my thoughts were completely disabled so that I could not make any value judgments whatsoever. How do people react to things they judge to be horrible and hellish to them? They react in such a way that displays negative tones, acts, and gestures. If you were to, for example, saw my limbs off when all of my thinking faculties are completely turned off, I would still display negative tones, acts, and gestures which would clearly indicate that I am in pain.
*NOTE TO READER: POST CONTINUED BELOW*
- Thread starter
- #75
*NOTE TO READER: READ PREVIOUS POST ABOVE THAT COMES BEFORE THIS ONE*
Likewise, I would also display positive tones, acts, and gestures if I were to experience the most powerful and intense bliss of my life in my mindless state. These positive expressions could be on a much smaller scale, but they would still be there. Given this, I think this makes it quite clear that our good and bad moods/feelings themselves truly possess beautiful and horrible qualities to us and that it is not a matter of our value judgments that determine the type of experience we have. As for depressed people who think that their lives still have good value/worth to them and carry on in life as though their lives really do possess good value/worth to them, I could apply the same experiment to them (just pretend). If I were to completely disable all their thinking faculties, then their depression would be exposed for what it truly is. Since these depressed people would now display negative tones and expressions which is a reflection of their depressed mood, then their depression is what gives their lives the perceptual experience of bad value.
Value judgments alone, even without our good and bad moods/feelings, can still allow us to live our lives where we still display positive and negative tones/acts. But the question is, are they reacting to an actual perceptual experience of good value/worth and bad value in their lives? Or are they reacting to nothing more than just a thought? Based on my personal experience, I think they are acting upon nothing more than just thoughts and attitudes alone. During my worst miserable moments, I have chosen to get the help I needed to change my life for the better. I had the thought that I needed to do this to change my life for the better. One could say that this had good value/worth to me. Otherwise, why would I even bother? But what these people are not realizing here is that my life was still completely dead, devoid of all perceived good value/worth, and it was the worst hellish life for me. So, I could have very well had the thought that this had good value/worth to me. But I realized that I was not actually perceiving any good value/worth in my life at all.
The fact is, my life needed a good quality of experience that would enable me to actually perceive good value/worth in my life. Neutral or horrible qualities of experience cannot possibly yield such a perceptual experience in my life. Again, I am not projecting any value judgments when saying that these experiences are of good quality, bad quality, and neutral quality. I will give you a t.v. analogy. If the picture on the screen was the best quality in the world and you judged it to be horrible quality, then you would be talking nonsense. It is, therefore, not our value judgment that determines the quality of the image. Rather, there is an objective method of determining the quality that this picture has. If the picture is at a certain level of quality, then it either classifies into the poor quality range or the good quality range. It doesn't matter what value judgment we use in judging that quality. Our value judgments would have no bearing on reality.
In that same sense, our quality of experience works the same way. Our level of good moods/feelings falls within the good quality range, our level of bad moods/feelings falls within the poor (bad) quality range, while having neither good nor bad moods/feelings is like having the t.v. turned off. You cannot have a good and beautiful quality image when the screen is of the worst quality just as how you cannot have any perceptual good or beautiful experience in your life when you are experiencing the worst feelings of misery and despair of your life. Remember, it is only how we feel that determines the quality of experience we have, according to my hypothesis/philosophy. Otherwise, without your moods/feelings, then you would have no quality of experience which would be equivalent to the t.v. screen being turned off.
As you can see, based upon everything I have explained, it is instead our experiences themselves that possess these qualities and not a matter of value judgment. I guess you could say that this good quality of experience I needed would be the divine light of God in my life. I don't believe in God, the paranormal, and the afterlife. I am actually undecided when it comes to those things. But let's just go with my God analogy anyway to make things interesting. This divine light would be my good moods/feelings. Therefore, my good moods/feelings are not just pleasant moods/feelings and nothing more. They would be the sacred, divine, holy light to my life that make me a beautiful being of light and my entire reality beautiful and filled with good value, worth, and joy.
This sacred light-filled state of consciousness is a divine and transcended form of awareness (state of mind) that transcends all other forms of awareness which are either mechanistic (yield no perceptual quality of good value/worth to my life) or are nothing but a descended form of awareness (suffering, hell, torment, misery, bad value, etc.). In this divine state, I become perceptually aware of all the good value, joy, worth, beauty, and happiness of this life. I am able to truly experience these qualities for what they are. But if I were to have this divine awareness taken away from me, then I would be descended into a horrible/hellish state where I perceive horrible value in my life or I would simply be living by a mechanistic standard of good value/worth in my life. That is, it wouldn't be any actual perceived good value/worth in my life. Rather, it would be a mechanistic (no quality) standard that would offer my life no real perceptual experience of good value/worth.
I need to be in that divine state since my soul seeks the realm of the light and one with the Divine. I will not stand living my life in the dark realms or the blank (neutral) realm. That is why I need to be in a normal, healthy, fully recovered state of mind from any horrible miserable experiences in my life. That will keep me into the realm of the light and out of the darkness. Many people deny this divine light in my life as being nothing more than a value judgment. When I experience this divine light filling me up such as when I feel very excited and joyful over a new movie or video game, I would tell them that this experience truly is beautiful for me. But they would respond and say that this is nothing more than a value judgment on my part. But what these people fail to realize is that the divine light truly possesses a beautiful quality of experience for an individual and that this is not a matter of value judgment. As you can see here, our good moods/feelings are the very divine light of God we need in our lives and many people don't realize this. They are way too caught up in their personal value judgments to realize what the light truly is.
Even if people experienced the divine light (good moods/feelings) and disliked them and thought they were horrible experiences that were of the worst value to them, then this would still be false. He/she would be having thoughts of disliking the divine light and he/she would be having thoughts of it being horrible to him/her, but he/she is still having nothing but a beautiful divine experience that gives his/her life the perceptual experience of good value/worth. The same thing would apply if a person experienced a miserable mood/feeling (the dark spiritual energy) and liked it and thought that it was something good to him/her. The dark spiritual energy possesses a quality to it that makes it, not only poison, but also makes it of a horrible quality that can only yield a perceptual experience of bad value in a person's life. Perhaps liking something can only be a good feeling that gives a person's life at least some perceptual good value/worth and perhaps disliking something can only be a bad feeling. That would create a mix of feelings/moods for a person who likes a miserable mood/feeling. If the person was experiencing mostly a miserable mood and a tiny amount of liking (a good feeling/mood), then he/she would be perceiving something such as 80% bad value in his/her life and 20% good value. However, I am not exactly sure if liking and disliking really would be good and bad moods/feelings.
When people have heavenly near death experiences, they experience a far greater degree of bliss (good moods/feelings) for a reason. It is because, in the higher heavenly spiritual realms, there is much more of this divine light energy that the person can be filled up with. It would give him/her a far greater and more powerful perceptual awareness of good value, love, joy, beauty, and worth than the small amount he/she would have here on Earth. There truly is nothing more to life than this divine light. If you still do not understand what I mean and if it still makes no sense to you when I say that our experiences themselves, regardless of our value judgments, truly are beautiful and yielding of good value/worth to our lives while others are horrible and yielding bad value to our lives, then there are experiences that you cannot comprehend. People who have near death experiences will report to you experiences they've had. They might not make sense to you or anyone else. But if you were to have these experiences for yourself, then you would know.
Our good moods/feelings already are the experience of beauty, good value, worth, etc. in our lives and, like I said, people just don't realize this and it makes no sense to them. So, our brains really do create experiences that are truly horrible and beautiful for us and it is not a matter of value judgment. I would like to say a few more things before I conclude this. That is, this whole entire explanation I've given to you in regards to God and the divine light is nothing more than an analogy as I've mentioned before to make my point clear. The analogy sort of sounds like the New Age spiritual belief. Therefore, I would call my version of hedonism "New Age Hedonism." It is an evolved (upgraded) version of hedonism.
We as a society are evolving towards a hedonistic culture. In the distant future, I would imagine a society that is almost entirely hedonistic. I personally think that the non hedonistic values are outdated and, as I've said before, do not give a person's life the actual perceptual awareness of good value/worth. I think that we need to be awakened to the New Age Hedonistic values. Since I am undecided on the existence of the soul, God, and the afterlife, then I am very well open minded towards the possibility that my God/divine light analogy that I explained earlier is actually real and not just some analogy. I think my analogy would apply both in a purely naturalistic universe where there is no God, divine light, afterlife, etc. as well as in a universe where those things really do exist.
In a purely naturalistic universe, we wouldn't call it the divine light. Our good moods/feelings would instead simply be things we need in our lives to give our lives the perceptual experience of good value/worth. When we are in a really good mood such as if we were experiencing very profound and intense beautiful feelings, then that would not be the realm of the light in a purely naturalistic universe. It would instead simply be the state of mind where we have an enhanced perceptual awareness of good value/worth. Lastly, some people would say that my whole philosophy is nonsense and irrational. That could be the case. Or it might not be the case. After all, my values are solely based on pure emotion because it is only how I feel that determines whether I see good or bad value in my life. Emotions are irrational which could very well mean that my values are irrational and have no foundation in rational thinking. Imagine if a wild hedonistic animal came up with its own philosophy. That philosophy might be irrational because its foundation is nothing but pure emotion and instinct.
However, when it comes to other endeavors, I think I am quite rational. But even during these rational endeavors, I still need my good moods/feelings to give these endeavors the perceptual experience of good value/worth to me. But when it comes to my personal life and what gives my life value, then I am emotional rather than rational. I live my life purely by emotion alone. If things are very dear, precious, and valuable to you, then I think that would have to be an emotional aspect of your existence. Hence the reason why I am this New Age Hedonist in the first place. I see emotions as being everything to being human. However, it is only the positive emotions that I see as yielding perceptual good value and worth in a person's life. I see a life devoid of positive emotions as a life yielding no quality of experience or a horrible quality of experience if said life was a life filled with miserable emotions. Thus, there would be no real perceptual quality of good value/worth in these types of lives. But in the event that I really am correct with my whole hypothesis/philosophy, then this could be a world changing revolution.
People would realize that our mental well being is the only thing that matters in life (if they could, of course, experience good moods/feelings to make this idea matter to them). Once this notion becomes something that matters to these people, then they would be encouraged through their good moods/feelings to try to find cures for depression and other illnesses that take away our good moods/feelings. Perhaps they would find a way to create a blissful utopia life for all of us in the distant future which, according to my worldview, would be the only greatest life for all of us since it would be a life that would offer us the greatest quality and intensity of bliss. It would be a life where we would suffer from no more depression, anhedonia, misery, and we would get all the fancy things we want that would offer our lives even more bliss.
To finally conclude this packet, I will just summarize my entire worldview. It would be that having fun, enjoying your life, getting sexually aroused, going on blissful dream vacations, etc. is divine. It is the divine perceptual awareness of good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness we need in our lives. I do not agree with the definition of divine set forth by, for example, fundamentalist Christians who advocate the idea that it is through giving up our sinful hedonistic pursuits and other sins that we become one with the Divine. People are also wrong when they say that our higher, humanistic qualities and needs depend upon non hedonistic pursuits, endeavors, and lifestyles such as caring for others, helping others, making the world a better place, etc. Sure, these types of non hedonistic attributes would certainly come in handy when saving/helping our lives and the lives of others. For example, you would definitely want to escape from danger if you could not feel anything good or bad. But even so, all endeavors in our lives that are non hedonistic are still nothing more than wise decisions to save/help our lives and make our future better. But they, alone, offer our lives no real perceptual quality of good value/worth.
This means that people who struggle with depression and anhedonia should end their lives providing that they cannot recover their good moods/feelings fully or sufficiently within a reasonable time frame. After all, who would want to drag their life on and on with little to nothing good or worthwhile actually perceived in their lives? Please take important note that I am not actually advocating that these depressed/anhedonic people should end their lives. All I am saying here is that my worldview would say this. I am not actually saying this as a person to depressed/anhedonic people out there. However, I would definitely be saying this to myself. If I struggled with depression, misery, or anhedonia that could not fully or sufficiently recover within the reasonable time frame of 1-2 years, then I would end my life regardless of how much grief, anger, and hurt it causes others. It is not a matter of me being selfish and greedy and I will explain why.
If there were some sort of sacred fruit and this was truly the only thing that could sustain us with life force that gives our lives the perceptual quality of good value/worth, then this fruit is truly all there is to life and being human. Without this fruit, then there is simply no reason to live because even the idea of living on for others to not cause them grief must rely on this fruit to make it a good and worthwhile endeavor for him/her to remain in this life for others, his/her hobbies, etc. Our positive emotions would be this sacred fruit. They are truly all there is to life and all there is to being human and people would be delusional to think otherwise. They would be giving me delusional garbage words of advice if they were to tell me that my life can still have actual good value and worth to me in the absence of these good moods/feelings. With all of this being said, I would end my life if I could not recover these good moods/feelings back to me within that reasonable time frame. Hopefully, there is an eternal blissful afterlife of my dreams where I can be blissful all I want and get whatever I want. I do not agree with the Christian God and the doctrine of hell. Therefore, if God were real, then I would have to think he would understand me, my values, my situation, and give me the eternal blissful afterlife of my dreams.
Likewise, I would also display positive tones, acts, and gestures if I were to experience the most powerful and intense bliss of my life in my mindless state. These positive expressions could be on a much smaller scale, but they would still be there. Given this, I think this makes it quite clear that our good and bad moods/feelings themselves truly possess beautiful and horrible qualities to us and that it is not a matter of our value judgments that determine the type of experience we have. As for depressed people who think that their lives still have good value/worth to them and carry on in life as though their lives really do possess good value/worth to them, I could apply the same experiment to them (just pretend). If I were to completely disable all their thinking faculties, then their depression would be exposed for what it truly is. Since these depressed people would now display negative tones and expressions which is a reflection of their depressed mood, then their depression is what gives their lives the perceptual experience of bad value.
Value judgments alone, even without our good and bad moods/feelings, can still allow us to live our lives where we still display positive and negative tones/acts. But the question is, are they reacting to an actual perceptual experience of good value/worth and bad value in their lives? Or are they reacting to nothing more than just a thought? Based on my personal experience, I think they are acting upon nothing more than just thoughts and attitudes alone. During my worst miserable moments, I have chosen to get the help I needed to change my life for the better. I had the thought that I needed to do this to change my life for the better. One could say that this had good value/worth to me. Otherwise, why would I even bother? But what these people are not realizing here is that my life was still completely dead, devoid of all perceived good value/worth, and it was the worst hellish life for me. So, I could have very well had the thought that this had good value/worth to me. But I realized that I was not actually perceiving any good value/worth in my life at all.
The fact is, my life needed a good quality of experience that would enable me to actually perceive good value/worth in my life. Neutral or horrible qualities of experience cannot possibly yield such a perceptual experience in my life. Again, I am not projecting any value judgments when saying that these experiences are of good quality, bad quality, and neutral quality. I will give you a t.v. analogy. If the picture on the screen was the best quality in the world and you judged it to be horrible quality, then you would be talking nonsense. It is, therefore, not our value judgment that determines the quality of the image. Rather, there is an objective method of determining the quality that this picture has. If the picture is at a certain level of quality, then it either classifies into the poor quality range or the good quality range. It doesn't matter what value judgment we use in judging that quality. Our value judgments would have no bearing on reality.
In that same sense, our quality of experience works the same way. Our level of good moods/feelings falls within the good quality range, our level of bad moods/feelings falls within the poor (bad) quality range, while having neither good nor bad moods/feelings is like having the t.v. turned off. You cannot have a good and beautiful quality image when the screen is of the worst quality just as how you cannot have any perceptual good or beautiful experience in your life when you are experiencing the worst feelings of misery and despair of your life. Remember, it is only how we feel that determines the quality of experience we have, according to my hypothesis/philosophy. Otherwise, without your moods/feelings, then you would have no quality of experience which would be equivalent to the t.v. screen being turned off.
As you can see, based upon everything I have explained, it is instead our experiences themselves that possess these qualities and not a matter of value judgment. I guess you could say that this good quality of experience I needed would be the divine light of God in my life. I don't believe in God, the paranormal, and the afterlife. I am actually undecided when it comes to those things. But let's just go with my God analogy anyway to make things interesting. This divine light would be my good moods/feelings. Therefore, my good moods/feelings are not just pleasant moods/feelings and nothing more. They would be the sacred, divine, holy light to my life that make me a beautiful being of light and my entire reality beautiful and filled with good value, worth, and joy.
This sacred light-filled state of consciousness is a divine and transcended form of awareness (state of mind) that transcends all other forms of awareness which are either mechanistic (yield no perceptual quality of good value/worth to my life) or are nothing but a descended form of awareness (suffering, hell, torment, misery, bad value, etc.). In this divine state, I become perceptually aware of all the good value, joy, worth, beauty, and happiness of this life. I am able to truly experience these qualities for what they are. But if I were to have this divine awareness taken away from me, then I would be descended into a horrible/hellish state where I perceive horrible value in my life or I would simply be living by a mechanistic standard of good value/worth in my life. That is, it wouldn't be any actual perceived good value/worth in my life. Rather, it would be a mechanistic (no quality) standard that would offer my life no real perceptual experience of good value/worth.
I need to be in that divine state since my soul seeks the realm of the light and one with the Divine. I will not stand living my life in the dark realms or the blank (neutral) realm. That is why I need to be in a normal, healthy, fully recovered state of mind from any horrible miserable experiences in my life. That will keep me into the realm of the light and out of the darkness. Many people deny this divine light in my life as being nothing more than a value judgment. When I experience this divine light filling me up such as when I feel very excited and joyful over a new movie or video game, I would tell them that this experience truly is beautiful for me. But they would respond and say that this is nothing more than a value judgment on my part. But what these people fail to realize is that the divine light truly possesses a beautiful quality of experience for an individual and that this is not a matter of value judgment. As you can see here, our good moods/feelings are the very divine light of God we need in our lives and many people don't realize this. They are way too caught up in their personal value judgments to realize what the light truly is.
Even if people experienced the divine light (good moods/feelings) and disliked them and thought they were horrible experiences that were of the worst value to them, then this would still be false. He/she would be having thoughts of disliking the divine light and he/she would be having thoughts of it being horrible to him/her, but he/she is still having nothing but a beautiful divine experience that gives his/her life the perceptual experience of good value/worth. The same thing would apply if a person experienced a miserable mood/feeling (the dark spiritual energy) and liked it and thought that it was something good to him/her. The dark spiritual energy possesses a quality to it that makes it, not only poison, but also makes it of a horrible quality that can only yield a perceptual experience of bad value in a person's life. Perhaps liking something can only be a good feeling that gives a person's life at least some perceptual good value/worth and perhaps disliking something can only be a bad feeling. That would create a mix of feelings/moods for a person who likes a miserable mood/feeling. If the person was experiencing mostly a miserable mood and a tiny amount of liking (a good feeling/mood), then he/she would be perceiving something such as 80% bad value in his/her life and 20% good value. However, I am not exactly sure if liking and disliking really would be good and bad moods/feelings.
When people have heavenly near death experiences, they experience a far greater degree of bliss (good moods/feelings) for a reason. It is because, in the higher heavenly spiritual realms, there is much more of this divine light energy that the person can be filled up with. It would give him/her a far greater and more powerful perceptual awareness of good value, love, joy, beauty, and worth than the small amount he/she would have here on Earth. There truly is nothing more to life than this divine light. If you still do not understand what I mean and if it still makes no sense to you when I say that our experiences themselves, regardless of our value judgments, truly are beautiful and yielding of good value/worth to our lives while others are horrible and yielding bad value to our lives, then there are experiences that you cannot comprehend. People who have near death experiences will report to you experiences they've had. They might not make sense to you or anyone else. But if you were to have these experiences for yourself, then you would know.
Our good moods/feelings already are the experience of beauty, good value, worth, etc. in our lives and, like I said, people just don't realize this and it makes no sense to them. So, our brains really do create experiences that are truly horrible and beautiful for us and it is not a matter of value judgment. I would like to say a few more things before I conclude this. That is, this whole entire explanation I've given to you in regards to God and the divine light is nothing more than an analogy as I've mentioned before to make my point clear. The analogy sort of sounds like the New Age spiritual belief. Therefore, I would call my version of hedonism "New Age Hedonism." It is an evolved (upgraded) version of hedonism.
We as a society are evolving towards a hedonistic culture. In the distant future, I would imagine a society that is almost entirely hedonistic. I personally think that the non hedonistic values are outdated and, as I've said before, do not give a person's life the actual perceptual awareness of good value/worth. I think that we need to be awakened to the New Age Hedonistic values. Since I am undecided on the existence of the soul, God, and the afterlife, then I am very well open minded towards the possibility that my God/divine light analogy that I explained earlier is actually real and not just some analogy. I think my analogy would apply both in a purely naturalistic universe where there is no God, divine light, afterlife, etc. as well as in a universe where those things really do exist.
In a purely naturalistic universe, we wouldn't call it the divine light. Our good moods/feelings would instead simply be things we need in our lives to give our lives the perceptual experience of good value/worth. When we are in a really good mood such as if we were experiencing very profound and intense beautiful feelings, then that would not be the realm of the light in a purely naturalistic universe. It would instead simply be the state of mind where we have an enhanced perceptual awareness of good value/worth. Lastly, some people would say that my whole philosophy is nonsense and irrational. That could be the case. Or it might not be the case. After all, my values are solely based on pure emotion because it is only how I feel that determines whether I see good or bad value in my life. Emotions are irrational which could very well mean that my values are irrational and have no foundation in rational thinking. Imagine if a wild hedonistic animal came up with its own philosophy. That philosophy might be irrational because its foundation is nothing but pure emotion and instinct.
However, when it comes to other endeavors, I think I am quite rational. But even during these rational endeavors, I still need my good moods/feelings to give these endeavors the perceptual experience of good value/worth to me. But when it comes to my personal life and what gives my life value, then I am emotional rather than rational. I live my life purely by emotion alone. If things are very dear, precious, and valuable to you, then I think that would have to be an emotional aspect of your existence. Hence the reason why I am this New Age Hedonist in the first place. I see emotions as being everything to being human. However, it is only the positive emotions that I see as yielding perceptual good value and worth in a person's life. I see a life devoid of positive emotions as a life yielding no quality of experience or a horrible quality of experience if said life was a life filled with miserable emotions. Thus, there would be no real perceptual quality of good value/worth in these types of lives. But in the event that I really am correct with my whole hypothesis/philosophy, then this could be a world changing revolution.
People would realize that our mental well being is the only thing that matters in life (if they could, of course, experience good moods/feelings to make this idea matter to them). Once this notion becomes something that matters to these people, then they would be encouraged through their good moods/feelings to try to find cures for depression and other illnesses that take away our good moods/feelings. Perhaps they would find a way to create a blissful utopia life for all of us in the distant future which, according to my worldview, would be the only greatest life for all of us since it would be a life that would offer us the greatest quality and intensity of bliss. It would be a life where we would suffer from no more depression, anhedonia, misery, and we would get all the fancy things we want that would offer our lives even more bliss.
To finally conclude this packet, I will just summarize my entire worldview. It would be that having fun, enjoying your life, getting sexually aroused, going on blissful dream vacations, etc. is divine. It is the divine perceptual awareness of good value, worth, joy, beauty, and happiness we need in our lives. I do not agree with the definition of divine set forth by, for example, fundamentalist Christians who advocate the idea that it is through giving up our sinful hedonistic pursuits and other sins that we become one with the Divine. People are also wrong when they say that our higher, humanistic qualities and needs depend upon non hedonistic pursuits, endeavors, and lifestyles such as caring for others, helping others, making the world a better place, etc. Sure, these types of non hedonistic attributes would certainly come in handy when saving/helping our lives and the lives of others. For example, you would definitely want to escape from danger if you could not feel anything good or bad. But even so, all endeavors in our lives that are non hedonistic are still nothing more than wise decisions to save/help our lives and make our future better. But they, alone, offer our lives no real perceptual quality of good value/worth.
This means that people who struggle with depression and anhedonia should end their lives providing that they cannot recover their good moods/feelings fully or sufficiently within a reasonable time frame. After all, who would want to drag their life on and on with little to nothing good or worthwhile actually perceived in their lives? Please take important note that I am not actually advocating that these depressed/anhedonic people should end their lives. All I am saying here is that my worldview would say this. I am not actually saying this as a person to depressed/anhedonic people out there. However, I would definitely be saying this to myself. If I struggled with depression, misery, or anhedonia that could not fully or sufficiently recover within the reasonable time frame of 1-2 years, then I would end my life regardless of how much grief, anger, and hurt it causes others. It is not a matter of me being selfish and greedy and I will explain why.
If there were some sort of sacred fruit and this was truly the only thing that could sustain us with life force that gives our lives the perceptual quality of good value/worth, then this fruit is truly all there is to life and being human. Without this fruit, then there is simply no reason to live because even the idea of living on for others to not cause them grief must rely on this fruit to make it a good and worthwhile endeavor for him/her to remain in this life for others, his/her hobbies, etc. Our positive emotions would be this sacred fruit. They are truly all there is to life and all there is to being human and people would be delusional to think otherwise. They would be giving me delusional garbage words of advice if they were to tell me that my life can still have actual good value and worth to me in the absence of these good moods/feelings. With all of this being said, I would end my life if I could not recover these good moods/feelings back to me within that reasonable time frame. Hopefully, there is an eternal blissful afterlife of my dreams where I can be blissful all I want and get whatever I want. I do not agree with the Christian God and the doctrine of hell. Therefore, if God were real, then I would have to think he would understand me, my values, my situation, and give me the eternal blissful afterlife of my dreams.
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