The Nature of Consciousness and Hedonism

[Scholar]

 

In this conversaiton, around the chapter "Defining Happiness", the individual from the Research Institute for Qualia makes the point that a world in which all of us existed in a simulation which stimulated our "Well-being" neurons would be a good world, that such a world is desirable.

This view is justified through a certain view of what Meaning is. It is stated that we seek Meaning because it provides us with a positive mental state, so in the end, if you changed the agent such that you stimulate that state directly, they would be perfectly satisfied, and on the contrary, perfectly unsatisfied and feel deeply meaningless due to the stimulation of that area of the brain.

All of this is true, however, the conclusion that then follows from this, that a world in which we did nothing but stimulate our meaningcenters to be blissfully meaningful, is a good world, is where the researcher plays a little utilitarian trick on us.

 

It's an assumption that just because this is how the human mind works, it is therefore desirable to maximize that which the human mind seeks.

And this assumption is false because it neglects the very reason for why things are sought, and that is ones own nature. It is ones nature that determines what one finds meaningful and what one finds not meaningful. It is trivial to say that, by adjusting ones nature, one is therefore also adjusting what will give one the experience of meaning and pleasure.

If I changed your brain to enjoy and find deeply meaningful the torture children, then that is of course what you would find deeply meaningful. But there is no "ought" in the universe that tells us that positive sensation must be maximized, and that such a world would be desirable or good.

The universe moves completely outside of the need for pleasure. Atoms move, evolution moves, and the human mind moves, without the necessary presence of pleasure at the end of that motion. And that is because of the nature of reality, which is what determines the motion of all things in the first place.

 

The human mind does move towards pleasure, but it also moves towards other things as they relate towards it's own nature.

 

And there is a deep metaphysical blindspot here, in that the utilitarian assumes that because the nature of the human mind is such that it inevitably is pulled towards positive states and pushed away from negative states, that therefore the world ought to be structured under the maxim of hedonism, because that is what the human mind does anyways.

The conclusion of this view is that a world ought to be created devoid of nature, that the positive state in of it self ought to be maximized, even if it contradicts our nature.

 

 

But that is not the purpose of the universe. The universe's purpose is found in it's complete nature, in the motion of every atom. In that way the human nature is an extention of Divine nature. The "meaning" of life is life itself, exactly as it is, and exactly as it will transform itself. It is self-justifying.

What this means is that hedonism is not the inevitable conclusion of evolution, as is assumed by the researcher. He believes if human beings were maximally rational, that they would inevitably conclude that pure hedonism is the logical way of expression, the path of least resistance and therefore the way reality will express itself. But reality will not express itself bound by some false, logical maxim he established, but instead by the nature of what it is.

The way humanity will express itself will relate to it's nature, and in that way, if we find the idea of simply sitting in a soup of pleasure until the heat-death of universe occurs as meaningless, then that is not how we will express ourselves. There is something far deeper transpiring here that goes beyond mere human nature, beyond mere, simplistic psychological accounts.

The mistake committed here is that one has assume that the nature of the human mind is to seek pleasure, rather than part of the nature of the human mind being that it is pulled towards pleasure, and that positives states are a foundational way in which our nature fulfills itself.

But the nature is what is fundamental, as a complete phenomenon. Especially on a collective level it will not be reducible to a simple hedonistic account of the brain.

 

 

This does not mean that the hedonistic server farm is not the end-point of this civilization. It could be, who knows. The point is that the nature of the universe is far deeper than that. Evolution dictates that, even if 999 out of 1000 civilizations become hedonistic server farms, one of them will continue in a way that explores the infinity of reality in a different way, just by the nature of random expression (which is the only way infinity can fully discover itself).

 

There are more superficial points to be made, in relation to the impossibility of transcending ones own nature completely (by adjusting ones nature one will eventually lose the very drive that sought the adjustment, meaning the maintaining of the adjustment  requires stability, which requires a rigidity in ones own nature, which translates into ignorance), but that would be for another conversation.

Edited March 25 by Scholar