There are no higher emotions/values

[Transcended Dimensions]

Well, you can forget about that if you want.  Besides, it was just a metaphor anyway.  Instead, let me just say this.  Here is an exercise I would want other people to perform.  This would actually be a great example for people who take psychedelic drugs.  If a person took a psychedelic drug and experienced the most profoundly beautiful bliss of his life, then he might report that it was a profoundly beautiful experience that was out of this world.  If that same person later struggled with the worst misery of his life and did something with his life such as being there for his family or contributing to the world despite that horrible misery, then he might report that this was also a profoundly beautiful experience in his life even though he was unable to feel positive emotions. 

I would want that person to actually think twice here.  In other words, I would want him to compare the two mental states.  If he pays close attention, then he should come to realize that mental state #2 (his intellectual/moral based values) is literally nothing compared to mental state #1 (the profoundly beautiful bliss he felt from being on that psychedelic drug).  Once he discovers this, then this should reveal that positive emotions are the real perception of value while our intellect, character, and morality alone is not the real perception of value. 

But if he still says to me that mental state #2 is the real perception of value in his life and that it's something far greater than mental state #1, then I have no way of knowing whether he is delusional and in denial or if he really is telling the truth.  I am not inside his mind and I can't experience what he is experiencing to find out.  As for me, I have payed attention to my mental states and, for me, my positive emotions are the real perception of beauty and joy while my intellect is not. 

One last thing here.  I don't think that both mental state #1 and mental state #2 are the real perception of value.  Only one mental state can be the real perception of value and I think it's mental state #1 (the positive emotions along with the negative emotions since they allow us to perceive bad value).  By the way.  Perceiving and experiencing are the same thing.  If you perceive the color red, then you are experiencing the color red and vice versa.  So, when you perceive value, you are experiencing value and vice versa.  Another example would be, if you experience hunger and thirst, then you are perceiving hunger and thirst and vice versa.

And I would like you to address the points and objections that I and others have made with regards to your OP, but you’re clearly not interested in doing that.  That’s how this works, you know.  You present your argument, your interlocutor responds to the specific premises they disagree with, and then you respond to those specific objections.  That’s called, a discussion.  You should try it some time.  Maybe you would find fewer condescending memes posted in your threads that way.

I think I have addressed those objections.  This seems to be a problem when it comes to debates and discussions.  One person claims that their objections have not been addressed while the other person claims that they did address these objections.  Also, I know my worldview/philosophy is like a religion.  But I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of god, the paranormal, and the afterlife.  If it's the case that these things do exist, then my worldview would apply in the form of a spiritual belief or religion. 

But, if we live in a universe where those things do not exist (i.e. a purely naturalistic universe), then my worldview would still apply.  But it would take on a secular form.  I would describe the religious form of my worldview to be Spiritual Hedonism, Divine Hedonism, or New Age Hedonism since it would be the hedonistic philosophy taking on a spiritual/religious form. 

But hedonism in a purely naturalistic universe would simply be hedonism.  By the way, hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure (the positive emotions) are the only good things in life and that displeasure (the negative emotions) are the only bad things in life.  So, according to hedonism, the only way our lives can be good and beautiful is if we are having fun, enjoying our lives, and experiencing profound beauty and joy through our positive emotions.

[LadyForCamus]

I think I have addressed those objections.

You didn’t.  You didn’t even bother to quote any specific thing I said.  

This seems to be a problem when it comes to debates and discussions.  One person claims that their objections have not been addressed while the other person claims that they did address these objections.

Perhaps it’s only a problem in debates that involve you.

Also, I know my worldview/philosophy is like a religion.  But I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of god, the paranormal, and the afterlife.  If it's the case that these things do exist, then my worldview would apply in the form of a spiritual belief or religion. 

But, if we live in a universe where those things do not exist (i.e. a purely naturalistic universe), then my worldview would still apply.  But it would take on a secular form.  I would describe the religious form of my worldview to be Spiritual Hedonism, Divine Hedonism, or New Age Hedonism since it would be the hedonistic philosophy taking on a spiritual/religious form. 

But hedonism in a purely naturalistic universe would simply be hedonism.  By the way, hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure (the positive emotions) are the only good things in life and that displeasure (the negative emotions) are the only bad things in life.  So, according to hedonism, the only way our lives can be good and beautiful is if we are having fun, enjoying our lives, and experiencing profound beauty and joy through our positive emotions.

[/quote]

And you, nor anyone else is in the position to tell another human being that their lives can’t be good or have meaning unless they share the same worldview as you.  If you want to subscribe to this crazy shit then go for it, but leave the rest of us alone.  You’re no better than a Christian with this preaching. Get lost.

[Transcended Dimensions]

I think I have addressed those objections.

You didn’t.  You didn’t even bother to quote any specific thing I said.  

This seems to be a problem when it comes to debates and discussions.  One person claims that their objections have not been addressed while the other person claims that they did address these objections.

Perhaps it’s only a problem in debates that involve you.

Also, I know my worldview/philosophy is like a religion.  But I am actually undecided when it comes to the existence of god, the paranormal, and the afterlife.  If it's the case that these things do exist, then my worldview would apply in the form of a spiritual belief or religion. 

But, if we live in a universe where those things do not exist (i.e. a purely naturalistic universe), then my worldview would still apply.  But it would take on a secular form.  I would describe the religious form of my worldview to be Spiritual Hedonism, Divine Hedonism, or New Age Hedonism since it would be the hedonistic philosophy taking on a spiritual/religious form. 

But hedonism in a purely naturalistic universe would simply be hedonism.  By the way, hedonism is a philosophy which states that pleasure (the positive emotions) are the only good things in life and that displeasure (the negative emotions) are the only bad things in life.  So, according to hedonism, the only way our lives can be good and beautiful is if we are having fun, enjoying our lives, and experiencing profound beauty and joy through our positive emotions.

And you, nor anyone else is in the position to tell another human being that their lives can’t be good or have meaning unless they share the same worldview as you.  If you want to subscribe to this crazy shit then go for it, but leave the rest of us alone.  You’re no better than a Christian with this preaching. Get lost.
[/quote]

Just because I didn't quote your objections doesn't mean I didn't address them.  I can address objections with a simple paragraph or two. Also, I just can't trust anybody when they claim that there is more value and beauty to life than positive emotions.

[LadyForCamus]

You didn’t.  You didn’t even bother to quote any specific thing I said.  


Perhaps it’s only a problem in debates that involve you.

And you, nor anyone else is in the position to tell another human being that their lives can’t be good or have meaning unless they share the same worldview as you.  If you want to subscribe to this crazy shit then go for it, but leave the rest of us alone.  You’re no better than a Christian with this preaching. Get lost.

Also, I just can't trust anybody when they claim that there is more value and beauty to life than positive emotions.

Well, that’s a “you” problem.  I’m not sure why you’re bothering the rest of us about it.

[Astreja]

I am not inside his mind and I can't experience what he is experiencing to find out.

And that is precisely why you should never presume to know what someone else is experiencing --

-- nor should you assign any value at all to their experience, since to you it is unknowable.

Speak of your own experiences if you wish, and we can speak of ours if we wish, and that can be the basis for a dialogue.

[KevinM1]

This is the stupidest fucking thread.

"But mooooooooom, I really only want to live a life of instant gratification...!"

[Whateverist]

Fundraiser idea: we raffle off a one-time opportunity to wield the ban-hammer of death on this clown.  Tibs could retire early on this idea.

I just can't address this Bozo directly anymore, I'm pretty sure it is some kind of troll-bot.

[Edwardo Piet]

If there was a miserable person giving to others and making their lives good, then he wouldn't be able to perceive that as being good and worth living for without his positive emotions.  So, it wouldn't matter to that miserable person.  Also, an absence of suffering and misery can only make your life neutral (neither good nor bad) if you were like a robot because, as I said before, if you had neither positive nor negative emotions, then you would be perceiving no value in your life.

As far as I'm concerned an absence of bad is good. Like I said, I think Schopenhauer was right about that. Good is the absence of bad. It's the opposite viewpoint of the idea that evil is the absence of good. Which is how some Christians pathetically fail to deal with the problem of evil: They say evil doesn't exist as it's merely the absence of good. On the contrary, if there's nothing bad then it doesn't even matter whether there's anything good or not. The slighest bit of mild concern about your lack of good feelings is a slight bit of badness. Without even mild concern literally no one cares that there's no good feelings so it literally doesn't matter. And look at the positive feeling of relief for instance: It's a removal of pain.

And yes, someone who is miserable feels miserable but that doesn't mean their misery can't improve and it doesn't mean that they can't give pleasure to others.

[Losty]

People put emotions into two categories.  The 1st category would be the lower, basic emotions such as a feeling of sexual arousal, a feeling of excitement to go to the carnival, or feeling panic from being in a dangerous situation.  Many people deem these as the shallow emotions.  

But then there are the higher emotions founded upon morality, character, and intellect.  Even if a person couldn't feel the basic emotions, other people would still claim that this person can have these higher emotions in his life.  I am not sure if these higher emotions exist.  I don't think our morality, character, and intellect alone can be any real emotional state.  I think it can only be the basic emotions that are the real emotions and I will explain why.

Hunger and thirst are basic impulses.  But there is no intellectual form of hunger and thirst since the intellectual brain does not experience the actual sensation of hunger and thirst.  So, there is no higher form of hunger and thirst.  Likewise, there are the basic impulsive/instinctive emotions and there can be no higher emotions either since the intellectual brain does not experience any real emotions.  There is a big difference between metaphors and the real things.  

If you claimed that you were water and lightning since you flow through life with ease and strike down your enemies, then that would not make you actual water (H2O) and lightning.  You would just be metaphorically describing yourself as water and lightning.  People claim these higher emotions exist, but I think they are delusional and in denial.  I think humanity is living their life by a metaphorical version of emotions as well as a metaphorical version of value as I explain later on, too.

As you can see here, the intellectual brain is just meant for ideas and analysis.  It does not allow us to experience things such as hunger, thirst, sounds, smells, colors, or emotions.  Rather, it just gives us ideas of those things.  Just because people act as though these higher emotions exist and claim they exist does not mean they actually exist.  It would be no different than how people acted as though Thor was real and claimed he was real.  Just because they did doesn't mean that Thor was real.

This whole idea also applies to value (i.e. things such as good, bad, horror, disgust, beauty, joy, etc.).  People think there is a form of value founded upon intellect, morality, and character (the higher values).  Here again, they are delusional and in denial.  The intellectual brain just gives us ideas of value, but does not allow us to experience any real value.  Perceiving and experiencing are the same thing.  If you perceive the color red, then you are experiencing the color red and vice versa.  If you experience hunger and thirst, then you are perceiving hunger and thirst and vice versa.  

Likewise, when you perceive value, then you are experiencing value and vice versa.  Therefore, our intellect, morality, and character alone does not allow us to perceive value.  It can only be our basic emotions that allow us to perceive value since our basic emotions are actually the perception of value.  Our basic emotions are states of mind where we perceive value.  There are the positive/pleasant basic emotions such as if you felt excited to go to the carnival, if you felt love and attraction, or if you felt sexually aroused.  But then there are the negative/unpleasant basic emotions such as if you felt despair, misery, hate, disgust, or sadness.

It can only be the positive emotions that allow us to perceive good value, beauty, joy, love, etc. while it can only be the negative emotions that allow us to perceive bad value, hate, disgust, misery, etc.  In other words, the only way to truly see things in life from a positive perspective is through our positive emotions and the only way to truly see things in life from a negative perspective is through our negative emotions.  Having no emotions (apathy) would just render us perceiving no value in our lives at all.  So, what feels good is good and what feels bad is bad.  That might sound way too simple, but it's often times the most simple solutions that humanity tends to overlook.

So, this absolute definition of good and bad might be the real version of good and bad regardless of how much humanity denies this and regardless of how much they act and claim these higher values exist.  Another thing here.  Things that sound absurd are often times things that are true.  So, just because this definition of good and bad I am putting forward sounds absurd and false does not make it false.  To conclude this, I would like to say that humanity is delusional and in denial when it comes to a lot of things.  

They think we don't need emotions to give our lives value and that we can have real value in our lives through our intellect, character, and morality alone.  They would claim that emotions are for the weak which means they stigmatize against these emotional based values.  Humanity wants to be in charge and create their own values rather than their emotions being in charge.  But life doesn't always give us what we want.  I think the only real value we can have in our lives is not the everlasting form of value that would come about through our intellect, morality, and character.  

Rather, it can only be the fleeting form of value that exists since positive and negative emotions are very fleeting things.  Therefore, if you wish to truly perceive your mother, father, a moment, situation, thing, or this universe as something beautiful and great, then you need to feel positive emotions from those things.  Sadly, this would have to mean that people who struggle with clinical depression had no good value, beauty, or anything positive in their lives.  That would even include all those famous, genius, miserable artists who contributed artwork to the world.  

The people who could enjoy those works of art through their positive emotions had the beautiful value in their lives while the genius artist had nothing positive in his life since he could not perceive his artwork or his artistic endeavors as something beautiful and great.  Sure, he might have if he felt positive emotions on some level.  But it wouldn't be much because, in order for your life to have the greatest and most profound beauty, then you need to feel the most profound and intense positive emotions of your life.  

In addition, you need to feel a lot of positive emotions in order for your life to possess a lot of good value.  This would have to mean that the only greatest life one can live would be if he got high off of drugs and kept getting high.  Personally, I would not do drugs just from the idea in my mind of how much damage these drugs can cause and neither would I recommend drugs.  

Anyway, the philosophy known as hedonism would say the same things I'm saying here and I am only coming up with my personal arguments to support hedonism.  Hedonism says that pleasure (the positive emotions) are the only good things in life and displeasure (the negative emotions) being the only bad things in life.  Of course, there is no intellectual form of pleasure and displeasure.  According to hedonism, positive emotions are the only way our lives and things can be good and worth living for.  

This would mean that misery and an absence of positive emotions is no way to live or be an artist.  I, myself, plan on being a composer who composes amazing, beautiful, bizarre, otherworldly music and I need my positive emotions in order to make my composing hobby something beautiful and worth living for in my life.  In other words, I need to have fun and enjoy composing through my positive emotions.  Here is a link to hedonism:

http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_hedonism.html

Here is another link which is the emotional perceptual theory.  It explains a new idea surfacing which would be the idea that emotions are the perception of value.  Some people reject and deny this idea, but I support it based upon my own personal experience and arguments.  Value would be a synonym for emotions which means that, if you want your life to have value, then you must feel certain emotions.  This would be no different than saying, if you want your life to have real hunger and thirst, sounds, smells, and colors, then you need to feel hungry and thirsty, you need to perceive colors, you need to hear sound, and you need to smell scents.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.11...x/abstract

[Transcended Dimensions]

And you, nor anyone else is in the position to tell another human being that their lives can’t be good or have meaning unless they share the same worldview as you.  If you want to subscribe to this crazy shit then go for it, but leave the rest of us alone.  You’re no better than a Christian with this preaching. Get lost.

Also, I just can't trust anybody when they claim that there is more value and beauty to life than positive emotions.

Well, that’s a “you” problem.  I’m not sure why you’re bothering the rest of us about it.

Because it could be the case that other people really are lying and that I really am right.  If it's the case that I'm right, then I am sharing my views.

I am not inside his mind and I can't experience what he is experiencing to find out.

And that is precisely why you should never presume to know what someone else is experiencing --

-- nor should you assign any value at all to their experience, since to you it is unknowable.

Speak of your own experiences if you wish, and we can speak of ours if we wish, and that can be the basis for a dialogue.

I am just presenting my personal views in case I am right and other people really are wrong about their personal experience.  I am asking other people to think twice and really hone in on their personal experience to see for themselves if their positive emotions really are the only real source of beauty and joy in their lives or not.

This is the stupidest fucking thread.

"But mooooooooom, I really only want to live a life of instant gratification...!"

I was explaining something far more than that.  I had a religious view going on where I describe positive emotions as being a divine state of consciousness or a divine life force that we need in our lives.  I presented this religious view in one of my previous posts which was a recent post.

---

If there was a miserable person giving to others and making their lives good, then he wouldn't be able to perceive that as being good and worth living for without his positive emotions.  So, it wouldn't matter to that miserable person.  Also, an absence of suffering and misery can only make your life neutral (neither good nor bad) if you were like a robot because, as I said before, if you had neither positive nor negative emotions, then you would be perceiving no value in your life.

As far as I'm concerned an absence of bad is good. Like I said, I think Schopenhauer was right about that. Good is the absence of bad. It's the opposite viewpoint of the idea that evil is the absence of good. Which is how some Christians pathetically fail to deal with the problem of evil: They say evil doesn't exist as it's merely the absence of good. On the contrary, if there's nothing bad then it doesn't even matter whether there's anything good or not. The slighest bit of mild concern about your lack of good feelings is a slight bit of badness. Without even mild concern literally no one cares that there's no good feelings so it literally doesn't matter. And look at the positive feeling of relief for instance: It's a removal of pain.

And yes, someone who is miserable feels miserable but that doesn't mean their misery can't improve and it doesn't mean that he can't give pleasure to others.

Positive emotions is the good life, negative emotions is a bad life, and having neither positive nor negative emotions is a neutral life of no value which would be apathy.  That is my personal view. It would be like how, if you have neither a positive nor negative charge, then you can only have no charge at all. Not having a negative charge does not equate to having a positive charge. So, if you have no bad value in your life, that does not equate to good value in your life. You need positive emotions to have good value in your life just as how you need a positive charge to have a positive charge.