The scientific version of good and bad

[brewer]

I've read the entire OP. You've got some major flawed thinking.

According to what you stated, any action that I take (or action that is directed at me) that provides me a "rewarding experience" is therefore good? Flawed example: Lets say that I get a "rewarding experience" out of torturing small animals and killing people. I'm rewarded, therefore it is good. Flawed example: I abuse narcotics and get a short term "rewarding experience", therefore it is good. Flawed example: I get a "rewarding experience" every time someone abuses me, therefore it is good.

What exactly do you believe the scientific community should be testing? Describe a test? That your ideas should even be considered by the scientific community is grandiose and a bit delusional. Also the resurrection premise of eternal blissful life is magical thinking.

Why do we need to present your theory to the scientific community. If you believe it has validity you present it. Make and appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist and hand him a copy. Something tells me you might have already tried this and not got the results you wanted. That is why you are enlisting us.

You have some revenge thoughts that are disturbing. Example: lighting people on fire, taking away others hope and meaning in life that you perceive have harmed you, killing morality so that it can have a rebirth into a life of eternal bliss.

You repeatedly mention "treatment resistant". Are you currently in/receiving treatment? If you are, please stay there. If you are not, please seek it out.

[Detective L Ryuzaki]

I've read the entire OP. You've got some major flawed thinking.

According to what you stated, any action that I take (or action that is directed at me) that provides me a "rewarding experience" is therefore good? Flawed example: Lets say that I get a "rewarding experience" out of torturing small animals and killing people. I'm rewarded, therefore it is good. Flawed example: I abuse narcotics and get a short term "rewarding experience", therefore it is good. Flawed example: I get a "rewarding experience" every time someone abuses me, therefore it is good.

What exactly do you believe the scientific community should be testing? Describe a test? That your ideas should even be considered by the scientific community is grandiose and a bit delusional. Also the resurrection premise of eternal blissful life is magical thinking.

Why do we need to present your theory to the scientific community. If you believe it has validity you present it. Make and appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist and hand him a copy. Something tells me you might have already tried this and not got the results you wanted. That is why you are enlisting us.

You have some revenge thoughts that are disturbing. Example: lighting people on fire, taking away others hope and meaning in life that you perceive have harmed you, killing morality so that it can have a rebirth into a life of eternal bliss.

You repeatedly mention "treatment resistant". Are you currently in/receiving treatment? If you are, please stay there. If you are not, please seek it out.

I am glad someone such as yourself has actually bothered and has taken the time to fully read my post.  First off, if you tortured small animals and people and derived pleasant emotions from that, then that would be perceived as having good meaning to you regardless of what you tell yourself otherwise since it is only our pleasant emotions that allow us to perceive the scientific version of good meaning in our lives.  We would not even refer to the harm and foolish results as being anything good or bad.

Our pleasant/unpleasant feelings/emotions are the one and only things that allow things, people, and situations to be of good or bad value/worth to us in our lives.  If you choose to avoid a certain situation that brings you pleasant feelings/emotions, then that would not of been a good thing to you as long you did not derive any pleasant emotions from that idea and act.  Your thinking area of your brain would be doing nothing more than choosing to avoid that situation.  The thinking area of our brains alone does not give good or bad meaning to us and our lives.  It only makes decisions/choices and avoids situations that could get us and/or others harmed and/or killed.  

As for the scientific community, I am actually not sure if any scientist would even bother testing (perform experiments) to prove or disprove my theory.  As for my ideal life of eternal bliss and for me to be resurrected to live that life, it would seem as though it just might be impossible.  Everything is working against my favor.

Now I realize that this universe has no grand meaning or grand purpose, but it almost seems as though it does to me.  My own personal values would say:

"An eternal blissful life of no more suffering, depression, and anhedonia is the one and only greatest life for me and many others and this is my view of the ideal life.  This is the one and only life that will bring me and many others the greatest good meaning in our lives.  This is who I am and is how I want to live my life and compose.  Therefore, it is vital we find a way through science to make such a life possible and resurrect people such as me who have missed out so we can live this eternal blissful life."

But the moral values of others that I detest would instead say:

"No.  An eternal blissful life is not possible and neither are you going to be resurrected to live such an ideal fantasy life that will never happen.  This life has and will always consist of suffering.  There is good meaning to be had in our pain, misery, and struggles and we must all find that good meaning.  Though there is not any sort of eternal blissful life or afterlife as a reward for all our suffering, this does not matter either.  What is important here is what legacy you leave behind for this world."

This entire universe instead tends to completely work in the favor of the latter quote I utterly detest.  It imposes upon me a way of life and a person I am expected to be who I don't want to be and utterly detest.  This is not who I am at all.  I find no good meaning in suffering, depression, or mortality whatsoever.  It only serves to take away all good meaning of me, my life, and my composing dream.  Me being up and running in an eternal good mood for all eternity while composing and living my life is the one and only thing that would bring my life the greatest good meaning for me.

It's as if this universe came into existence in such a way to do nothing but impose upon the way of life and the person I wanted to be.  It is almost as if these moral human beings I utterly detest have created this universe themselves just to do nothing but work against my favor and impose upon my values and way of life.  So that is the reason why I would destroy this universe of suffering and mortality I utterly detest so much if I had the choice right now.  

I am also an atheist.  I do not believe in the God or the afterlife.  Therefore, I never wanted to be an atheist either.  So even my own atheism is working against my favor here.  Me having the belief in the God and afterlife would be the one and only thing that would allow me to at least look forward to an eternal blissful afterlife (albeit, a delusional belief).  But I am denied even that.

So now I am on the verge of psychosis here since I have lost all good meaning in my life.  People who wish to force and impose their moral version of good upon me and expect me to perceive good meaning in my suffering, mortality, atheism, and whatnot, then I would become psychotically enraged against these people.  It is as if they have taken everything away from me and have expected me to be one of them.  I know none of that is true.  I am just giving a metaphorical description here for what my life is like for me.

Finally, yes, I am getting treatment for these phobias which I highly suspect were the cause of my anhedonia.  But as for now, go ahead and just talk about everything I've written here instead.

[brewer]

This will be my final post here. I fear that a continued discussion with you will only serve to reinforce your deluded thought processes. Please continue with treatment.

[Detective L Ryuzaki]

This will be my final post here. I fear that a continued discussion with you will only serve to reinforce your deluded thought processes. Please continue with treatment.

Actually, I am completely open to the possibility of my theory being false unlike most deluded people.  So please feel free to continue to discuss with me from that previous post I just made.  That post also explains some life issues I am having as well.

I am going to give an imagined response and my reply to it right here to get my point across:

Response: No, I don't agree with your theory. I think you are delusional. I have clearly given you a reason that supports the moral version of good and bad. Do you honestly think that the acts of a sociopath deriving pleasant emotions from harming others is nothing bad?

My Reply: But I have given plenty of support for my theory as well. So who is right and who is wrong? It would all have to come down to science to decide. It would all have to come down to scientific experiments to decide this one.

But I will leave you with this. First off, to say that you have good meaning in your life would be to say that you have a reward in your life. That good meaning is a reward to you. There is no such thing as good meaning that is not rewarding to us as I've explained in my theory.

So a person who is having nothing but disrewarding pain and misery who tells his/herself that him/her going to the hospital is of good value and worth to him/her, then that would be no different than saying that him/her going to the hospital is a reward to him/her.

But if he/she is not having any rewarding experience (pleasant emotions) at the moment, then that would not be of any good value and worth to him/her during that given moment of pain and misery. Only when his/her wounds are attended to and he/she then derives pleasant emotions from his/her recovery would this then be the moment of good value and worth to him/her.
Another thing here. If someone said something such as:

"I got no rewarding experience out of this. But the important thing here is that I made the lives of others good and worth living."

Then that very quoted message would be of good value and worth to you. It would be a rewarding experience for you. Here again, if you had no pleasant emotions, then it would be of no good value and worth to you. It would mean nothing to you that you lived to help others and brought their lives good meaning.

Also, an anhedonic and/or depressed bank robber who steals money would not be the reward for him/her. That money would not be any reward for him/her at all. The reward instead comes from our rewarding experiences (our pleasant emotions). It would be no different than if a blind or deaf bank robber robbed a bank and you said that his/her stolen money is his/her sight or hearing.

Now going back to my example with the person living his/her life screaming while being lit on fire, this is one very significant valid supporting viewpoint for my theory. Since it is us having bad meaning in our lives that results in us refraining from our goals and dreams and committing suicide and since it is impossible for someone to choose to live their entire lives and fully pursue their goals and dreams while being lit on fire and screaming, then it goes to show you here that it is impossible for you to not have any bad meaning in your life when you are going through pain and misery (having unpleasant feelings/emotions).

Therefore, it goes to show you that our unpleasant feelings/emotions do give our lives bad meaning and that it has nothing to do with our way of thinking.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

So yes, aren't basic motivations for our actions irrational by definition? Otherwise, they would be logically derived from others and hence not basic.

You might still have to show that all our actions are enforced by an internal reward system. Maybe most of them. There may be automatic unconscious actions which are not.

A difficult task considering that often humans and their behaviour contradict even an entrenched personal reward system (however defined).

Theory of OP can be defined in terms of utility also, personal or larger axiological gains, which is not scientific in terms of good or bad, but perhaps in terms of the type of chemical process involved in one's brain. I think the terms 'good' and 'bad' are too woolly and allow for too much interpretation either way to be inherently scientific, and are by default impossible to 'test' scientifically unless a methodology is forwarded.

[Excited Penguin]

You have said much about nothing.

The way you go about it, anything imaginable is in the purview of science. You didn't discover shit. All it takes is to follow that simple premise you so naively think you hold uniquely - that phenomena of the world is in fact phenomena of the brain, for us.

The OP is so unjustifiably condescending it's retarded. You shouldn't 'talk' a big game if you can't even play it yourself.