If people were 100% rational, would the world be better?

[The Grand Nudger]

@LadyForCamus

I know I’m kind of going off the deep end here, and I apologize in advance if I’m starting to exasperate anyone. That’s not my intent. When we talk about objects like the Golden Gate Bridge, we’re talking about the value of a thing (whether it’s functional, aesthetic, practical value, etc), in the world for us, or to us, as the experiencers. But what is the value of a live conscious experience itself, if it’s finite and we know that? What can we point to beyond whatever evolutionary advantages consciousness may imbue us with as an instinctual means for species survival?

Is conscious experience not also a thing of value?  I suspect the answers to that question will be as varied as conscious viewers are.  Perhaps that's why we tend to presume that people who fail to see any of that value, anywhere, aren't playing with a full deck..or, to be generous, having their best or most reasonable day.

Another fun thought to play with down the rabbit hole. If value is fundamentally subjective, than conscious experience is literally the value maker. All value proceeds from it, and without it nothing is of value.

I think they’re rational cases for an obligation to live, but not necessarily cases for wanting to live, though I’m sure they are for some people.

Would it be fair to say, then, that you see many rational reasons for life, or for a selective preference for life, or for why equilibrium seeking produces the compulsion?  Other than all of those reasons, or any of those rational cases, you cant see a reason or rational case for life?

This seems incongruent to me, for pretty much the same reasons as the god-value contention.  

Kloro thinks there's no reason/value/purpose to life because it isn't god value.  You have a value category that you're inquiring about too..but it's not the set of rational cases for life.  You're aware of some and can imagine that there are more, but those cases don't satisfy that set you have in mind.

The honest position, at the end of a chain of disagreement or objection from that route, may simply be that the value being questioned about or asked for doesn't exist, even if intrinsic purpose or rational value does. Do you think that it would be rational to seek death if you found out that your god, and thus your god-value..were non existent? Ditto with a secular value other-than-value.

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and another tidbit for rabbit hole times.

Because if I got to keep it I would want it, you see? I prefer existence over non-existence, but those aren’t my choices, are they?

This statement strongly suggests that you do want it, and don't want it to end. Now, here's where religious nutters aren't being irrational at all, imo. Seeking the continuation of their existence is a rational behavior to be expected of a creature who, for all it's protestations to the contrary, very much does want to live and is in no hurry to leave, as evidenced by their every waking or sleeping moment, with the exception of just one day..when, for whatever reason..they fail to keep doing it (or take action against it, against themselves).

A religious nut thinks that they do have that choice, or that there's a chance they do, and they do what's contended to be necessary to get at it. You might also notice that no one is a janitor or a burger flipper in heaven. All kings and queens on golden thrones.