RE: Emotions are intrinsically good and bad
October 2, 2017 at 1:02 pm
(This post was last modified: October 2, 2017 at 1:05 pm by Transcended Dimensions.)
(October 2, 2017 at 12:34 pm)Khemikal Wrote: I'm very receptive to the idea that positive experience is generally a good thing, and that our experience of positive emotions is a common, though unreliable, indicator of the moral status of some x as we see it. This is hardly earthshattering, worldview changing information, however. I'm not entirely sure how a profound comment on morality could really be arrived at through recognition thereof. We all know that "good people" don't like the icky shit....but do they dislike it because it is icky, or is it icky because they dislike it? Your position insists on the latter. I disagree. I think that it's both, but that..if we were discussing delusions and meaningful blindness...then it would be the advocates of the latter, such as yourself..that have manufactured poor moral assessments. You are deluded in thinking that the things you find icky are actually made icky by you finding them to be so. You are blind to the suffering of the victim if you cannot identify the satisfaction of a sex offender as wrong. You are deluded if you believe that your own personal satisfaction demonstrates the good moral nature of your actions or experience, and blind to your own human condition if you cannot identify a situation in which you would very much enjoy doing some wrong thing.
If your "artistic view" is a rehash of dragonball z fanboi-ism you can spare yourself the trouble. I would suggest that the totality of human emotional response is beyond the scope of your love of dragonball z to competently, let alone profoundly, describe. We certainly wont learn any non-trivial thing about morality from being subjected to a lifted plot synopsis, by you, of your favorite episodes and themes.
My artistic metaphor also had a religious element it as well which described the divine light of god allowing us to perceive good values through his eyes, so to speak. My Dragonball Z and Sonic metaphor were simply an extension of that religious metaphor. But in regards to what you just said to me, I will admit, it does make my worldview look like a terrible model for society and just outright false. But let me point this out to you. Evolution has made it in such a way that our thoughts of things being good send a signal to make us feel a positive emotion so that we can truly perceive said situation as good while thoughts of things being bad send the signal to our brains to make us feel a negative emotion that allows us to truly perceive things as being bad. For example, if you thought that it was a lovely, good day today, that would make you feel euphoric and it is this state of euphoria that allows you to truly see that day as being lovely and good. This is just our biology and how our brains work. For anyone to frown upon me and my worldview would, thus, be no different than frowning upon me because I need sight to visualize colors or that I need a heart to live.
Our euphoric and dysphoric states are truly all we have to allow us to see the good and bad values in our lives just as how sight is the only thing that can allow a person to visualize colors. However, we also have an additional mechanism which is a deluding mechanism. Our brains are wired for delusion. For example, many people believe in false ideas such as Thor the God of Thunder. It doesn't matter how hard you to try to sway these people otherwise. It just won't work due to their deluded wiring. This means that we are wired to believe in this false definition of good and bad because it has aided ourselves as well as the rest of humanity. But there are such people like me who do not have this deluding mechanism just as how an atheist can see the falsehood of these gods. Even though this delusional religious wiring aids our survival and the survival of others, the atheist is beyond this wiring since he sees the real truth just like me. I can truly see that our positive emotions are the inner light while mostly everyone else can't due to their delusional wiring.