Meaning is an illusion.
This is a translation of an article that is very strange to me. Original
Fields Α and B are the same color
')
Most likely this is the most important thing I've ever written, because I believe that I have found nothing but the meaning of life, or its absence. If you are smart / educated, the beginning of this essay may seem fairly standard. Still watch out for the thought.
Sense << Emotion << Chemistry << Physics
The "meaning" of life comes solely from emotional experience, which is based on chemistry. We know that emotion, and even spiritual experience, is inherently chemical events. Nowadays, with the help of science, it is possible, using drugs and / or direct manipulations with the brain, to induce "spiritual" experience.
Of course, it is possible that these changes simply make us susceptible to signals from the real world of the spirits, but I find this opportunity insignificant enough to drop it with little discussion. In the same way, I exclude the possibility that the "demon of the floor" used telekinesis to drag a cup of coffee into its bowels, when I accidentally released it from my hands and it fell to the ground. In short, when there is a transparent, scientific explanation for something there is little reason to buy something else that requires the supernatural.
I argue that all goals and aspirations, however high or “self-sacrificing” they are, are nothing more than equally equal illusions based on biology, which is based on chemistry, which is based on physics.
In short, the meaning is coined by people as an explanation of why we do what we do. We are building this illusion because the alternative is too unbearable.
All my goals, and the goals of everyone I've ever met personally or through extended experience, are based on emotions. Take me, for example, because I can talk about myself authoritatively. Frankly, these are the basic things I want in life (not necessarily in that order):
First, there are fairly standard goals, and most of them will somehow agree with them. Next come those goals that are recognized as more "higher", and they are occupied by those who, by their nature, are more selfless.
But they are not.
We all heard that the concept of altruism is selfish, because it brings pleasure to the giver. Well, this is a model explaining this observation. The desire to help others, as well as the desire to be powerful, is quite natural and based on emotions. In both cases, the result is chemical injection of pleasure into the brain of the one who achieves his goal.
The only difference between selfish and altruistic desires is whether the result of desire is positive for others in addition to you , or not positive for you at all. Desires always exist for you. Even when you desperately want to sacrifice yourself for someone you love, you still do it, because without doing it you doom yourself to even greater suffering. This is not a selfless act; it is the result of the fact that you are compelled to commit an action, just as you are forced to look for food, a house or a couple.
Animals also have desires. They want to control their territory or kill competitors, mate, breed, etc. Many animals even love to masturbate and mourn the loss of their loved ones. In fact, our desires are not very different from the desires of animals; we simply fooled ourselves believing that they were different through complex self-deception.
For example, go and ask the usual parent why he or she had children, you will get the same answer as if you asked a monkey why she threw a poo into someone. "Um, because that's the way of it ?" And if you are lucky and you stumble upon a "sublime" thinker, he (a) will answer that children give them a strong sense of accomplishment, or even that it gives them the opportunity to live after death. In any case, all for the benefit of the parent.
But if you think about it, there are simply no other options. Unborn children are little concerned about the fact that they were not born. People have children for themselves, not for their unborn children. People give birth to children, because chemistry tells them to do it, which manifests itself in the form of emotion, "I just want children ...". Well, of course, you want them.
And we call it our individuality?
Now let's be frank. I believe that all human goals, whether they are basic and frankly selfish (have enough money to have sex when you want), and goals of a higher order, such as (I want to help Africa, even if it ruins my career .. .) - fundamentally the same. They are all chemical based and offer chemical rewards.
The wishes of a 45-year-old accountant with a paid-up loan for a house, a beautiful wife, two children and a healthy bank account in the amount of 401 thousand dollars are no different from the desires of a 17-year-old drug dealer who lives with his parents and is trying to return his ex.
Let's rate these desires:
Banker
Drug dealer
Okay, now the fun. Let's look at the gopher (yeah, this gopher):
Gopher
Now buddhist monk.
Monk
What do all these things have in common? They all lead to the same when they are achieved.
To the injection.
This is the sound of pleasant chemistry entering your brain. Chemistry is almost the same for a banker, a drug dealer, and a monk. It is processed with almost the same filling in the brain. Injection is the source of happiness.
Everything else, such as spirituality, meaning, purpose, etc., is added after that. There is no sense in animal life because they are not complex enough to create it, as an explanation for what they do. And we are complicated enough, so we have it.
I wrote earlier that I believe that free will does not exist . Interestingly, the concepts of "meaning" and "free will" are identical in one key point: both do not exist, but we desperately need them to maintain a healthy society.
Once you are awake, and realize that all your desires and pleasures ultimately boil down to chemical interactions, there are several ways you can go.
I chose the third. I chose meaningfully, as if I had free will, recognizing that it does not exist, but operating as if it exists, because there is no other practical alternative considering my limitations as a person (or society).
Then an interesting question comes up to the surface: how many other un-awakened people simply chose the first option?
The most amazing awareness that comes with this knowledge is that ignoramuses and people entangled in life are fundamentally no different from me. The fact of awakening does not negate the fact that I derive meaning from chemistry. So when I'm in an elevator filled with Christians who support Bush, and I look down on them for their stupidity, I am by and large no different from them.
Yes, I am aware of my limitations, but this does not remove them. I enjoyed the fact that I'm cooler, right? Like what I know about a secret they don't understand. Well, and how is this different from having church fun on Sundays? Or from eating a good plate of ice cream. There is no difference.
Injection is injection. All this is the same.
I can tell you that this awareness gave me a different perspective on religious people. Religion and spirituality are the ultimate manifestation of illusion, because religious people create alternative worlds from which meaning originates. And again, I wonder how many of them do this, because they looked through the illusion, but it was too much for them.
Another interesting point is that being a non-spiritual atheist who believes in intrinsic motivation is even more absurd than being religious. At least the religious person has the support of his statements - even if it is false; an atheist who believes in internal motivation has no such support. The only atheists who have solid ground under their feet in the context of meaning are those who create it in the context of an illusion.
When the CEO walks into our elevator, and then a monk on the next floor, things of the same kind occur in our heads. I will say that the monk is stupid, because he has rejected too much of what is pleasing in the material world. The director thinks we are stupid because we don’t have two country houses and a yacht. And Christians are looking down on us, because they know that Jesus is the answer.
We all subscribed to our little fantasies, and they all lead to injections of pleasure. We like to know that we are part of a small group that is “in topic”.
And yet, I will say that I am better, because I know that none of this is real, which leads to the next point.
There are two types of people: those who know that they are participating in an illusion, and those who still believe in inner motivation. There are two fundamental classifications of creatures. Animals and 99% of people on the one hand, and aware people on the other.
The answer to the question "why?" simple: we are chemical machines driven by evolution. We want power, attractiveness and happiness only because those who achieve them are successful in spreading themselves. Perhaps the meaning in itself is the meme used by evolution to persuade us to carry out its orders. Her method of hiding the dullness of everyday life. Meaning is a necessary illusion.
The question is not whether you can reset your worldly, selfish desires. You can not. No matter what your desires are, no matter how selfless they are, their fulfillment still leads to happiness for you. This is the nature of a living being, and this is what makes them your desires. The real question is whether you can evolve your goals so that they become useful to others at the same time, satisfying yourself.
This is the moral of the new world of awareness. Increasing happiness and reducing suffering is not something that needs to be done for another world; it is something that needs to be done simply because we know what kind of feelings these are, and we should try to make others happy just as we ourselves would like to.
It is also the definition of an advanced society. An advanced society works from within an illusion and seeks to achieve a connection between happiness and the suffering of the world. In other words, when one person suffers, the world suffers, and when people are happy, the world is happy.
Awareness of the illusion also makes the concept of virtual worlds a bit more interesting. Once you take into account the illusion, it becomes much less strange to look for pleasure in alternative fantasy worlds. These other worlds ultimately give us the same thing that we get from the "real" world, the actual injection. What is the difference where it comes from?
In general, I do not see this awareness completely dull, which I am sure will be the main reason for complaints (and as a result, the reason for denying this awareness). But at the same time, to see this as evidence of a total lack of meaning in your lives, let's make a distinction between internal motivation and the motivation that we can create ourselves. Let's use this awareness to create our own meaning.
Fields Α and B are the same color
')
Most likely this is the most important thing I've ever written, because I believe that I have found nothing but the meaning of life, or its absence. If you are smart / educated, the beginning of this essay may seem fairly standard. Still watch out for the thought.
Main argument
Sense << Emotion << Chemistry << Physics
The "meaning" of life comes solely from emotional experience, which is based on chemistry. We know that emotion, and even spiritual experience, is inherently chemical events. Nowadays, with the help of science, it is possible, using drugs and / or direct manipulations with the brain, to induce "spiritual" experience.
Of course, it is possible that these changes simply make us susceptible to signals from the real world of the spirits, but I find this opportunity insignificant enough to drop it with little discussion. In the same way, I exclude the possibility that the "demon of the floor" used telekinesis to drag a cup of coffee into its bowels, when I accidentally released it from my hands and it fell to the ground. In short, when there is a transparent, scientific explanation for something there is little reason to buy something else that requires the supernatural.
I argue that all goals and aspirations, however high or “self-sacrificing” they are, are nothing more than equally equal illusions based on biology, which is based on chemistry, which is based on physics.
In short, the meaning is coined by people as an explanation of why we do what we do. We are building this illusion because the alternative is too unbearable.
Goals
All my goals, and the goals of everyone I've ever met personally or through extended experience, are based on emotions. Take me, for example, because I can talk about myself authoritatively. Frankly, these are the basic things I want in life (not necessarily in that order):
- Feel the control on your life and destiny
- Being respected by those around me, at work and outside
- To love one woman, but to be sought by others
- Be educated and wise enough to understand the world
- Use the above knowledge to help improve the lives of others.
- Shares the experience of beauty with smart, interesting people.
First, there are fairly standard goals, and most of them will somehow agree with them. Next come those goals that are recognized as more "higher", and they are occupied by those who, by their nature, are more selfless.
But they are not.
We all heard that the concept of altruism is selfish, because it brings pleasure to the giver. Well, this is a model explaining this observation. The desire to help others, as well as the desire to be powerful, is quite natural and based on emotions. In both cases, the result is chemical injection of pleasure into the brain of the one who achieves his goal.
The only difference between selfish and altruistic desires is whether the result of desire is positive for others in addition to you , or not positive for you at all. Desires always exist for you. Even when you desperately want to sacrifice yourself for someone you love, you still do it, because without doing it you doom yourself to even greater suffering. This is not a selfless act; it is the result of the fact that you are compelled to commit an action, just as you are forced to look for food, a house or a couple.
Animals also have desires. They want to control their territory or kill competitors, mate, breed, etc. Many animals even love to masturbate and mourn the loss of their loved ones. In fact, our desires are not very different from the desires of animals; we simply fooled ourselves believing that they were different through complex self-deception.
For example, go and ask the usual parent why he or she had children, you will get the same answer as if you asked a monkey why she threw a poo into someone. "Um, because that's the way of it ?" And if you are lucky and you stumble upon a "sublime" thinker, he (a) will answer that children give them a strong sense of accomplishment, or even that it gives them the opportunity to live after death. In any case, all for the benefit of the parent.
But if you think about it, there are simply no other options. Unborn children are little concerned about the fact that they were not born. People have children for themselves, not for their unborn children. People give birth to children, because chemistry tells them to do it, which manifests itself in the form of emotion, "I just want children ...". Well, of course, you want them.
And we call it our individuality?
Sublime and low targets
Now let's be frank. I believe that all human goals, whether they are basic and frankly selfish (have enough money to have sex when you want), and goals of a higher order, such as (I want to help Africa, even if it ruins my career .. .) - fundamentally the same. They are all chemical based and offer chemical rewards.
The wishes of a 45-year-old accountant with a paid-up loan for a house, a beautiful wife, two children and a healthy bank account in the amount of 401 thousand dollars are no different from the desires of a 17-year-old drug dealer who lives with his parents and is trying to return his ex.
Let's rate these desires:
Banker
- Be a good father
- Be respected at home and at work
- Make your wife happy
- Get the next promotion
- Keep the bad guys away from your family (votes for Republicans)
- Send your children to good colleges
- Buy finally this summer house
Drug dealer
- Make enough money to buy your own corner
- Get a better car to impress your ex
- Get a gun so people know that they don’t joke with me
- Get better clothes
- Going to the rocking chair more to be more attractive / threatening
Okay, now the fun. Let's look at the gopher (yeah, this gopher):
Gopher
- Get more chopsticks for a better house.
- Find more food
- Attract that female out
- Protect the cubs
- Get more chopsticks for ...
Now buddhist monk.
Monk
- Discard by sense attachment to material
- Learning to let go of self-awareness
- Focus on the current moment, not before, not after
What do all these things have in common? They all lead to the same when they are achieved.
To the injection.
This is the sound of pleasant chemistry entering your brain. Chemistry is almost the same for a banker, a drug dealer, and a monk. It is processed with almost the same filling in the brain. Injection is the source of happiness.
Everything else, such as spirituality, meaning, purpose, etc., is added after that. There is no sense in animal life because they are not complex enough to create it, as an explanation for what they do. And we are complicated enough, so we have it.
I wrote earlier that I believe that free will does not exist . Interestingly, the concepts of "meaning" and "free will" are identical in one key point: both do not exist, but we desperately need them to maintain a healthy society.
So what to do with this knowledge?
Once you are awake, and realize that all your desires and pleasures ultimately boil down to chemical interactions, there are several ways you can go.
- Understand how it is, immediately throw it out of my head and continue to pretend that the meaning is real. Essentially, fall asleep again.
- Realize how central the emotions are and to reject all "lofty" aspirations. To dedicate your life to the pursuit of pleasure, because it is in any case the only source of meaning.
- Maintain double awareness. Realize that this is an illusion, but to participate in it for your own sanity. Follow the life path that allows more people to experience happiness and less suffering.
I chose the third. I chose meaningfully, as if I had free will, recognizing that it does not exist, but operating as if it exists, because there is no other practical alternative considering my limitations as a person (or society).
Then an interesting question comes up to the surface: how many other un-awakened people simply chose the first option?
findings
The most amazing awareness that comes with this knowledge is that ignoramuses and people entangled in life are fundamentally no different from me. The fact of awakening does not negate the fact that I derive meaning from chemistry. So when I'm in an elevator filled with Christians who support Bush, and I look down on them for their stupidity, I am by and large no different from them.
Yes, I am aware of my limitations, but this does not remove them. I enjoyed the fact that I'm cooler, right? Like what I know about a secret they don't understand. Well, and how is this different from having church fun on Sundays? Or from eating a good plate of ice cream. There is no difference.
Injection is injection. All this is the same.
I can tell you that this awareness gave me a different perspective on religious people. Religion and spirituality are the ultimate manifestation of illusion, because religious people create alternative worlds from which meaning originates. And again, I wonder how many of them do this, because they looked through the illusion, but it was too much for them.
Another interesting point is that being a non-spiritual atheist who believes in intrinsic motivation is even more absurd than being religious. At least the religious person has the support of his statements - even if it is false; an atheist who believes in internal motivation has no such support. The only atheists who have solid ground under their feet in the context of meaning are those who create it in the context of an illusion.
When the CEO walks into our elevator, and then a monk on the next floor, things of the same kind occur in our heads. I will say that the monk is stupid, because he has rejected too much of what is pleasing in the material world. The director thinks we are stupid because we don’t have two country houses and a yacht. And Christians are looking down on us, because they know that Jesus is the answer.
We all subscribed to our little fantasies, and they all lead to injections of pleasure. We like to know that we are part of a small group that is “in topic”.
And yet, I will say that I am better, because I know that none of this is real, which leads to the next point.
Conclusion
There are two types of people: those who know that they are participating in an illusion, and those who still believe in inner motivation. There are two fundamental classifications of creatures. Animals and 99% of people on the one hand, and aware people on the other.
The answer to the question "why?" simple: we are chemical machines driven by evolution. We want power, attractiveness and happiness only because those who achieve them are successful in spreading themselves. Perhaps the meaning in itself is the meme used by evolution to persuade us to carry out its orders. Her method of hiding the dullness of everyday life. Meaning is a necessary illusion.
The question is not whether you can reset your worldly, selfish desires. You can not. No matter what your desires are, no matter how selfless they are, their fulfillment still leads to happiness for you. This is the nature of a living being, and this is what makes them your desires. The real question is whether you can evolve your goals so that they become useful to others at the same time, satisfying yourself.
This is the moral of the new world of awareness. Increasing happiness and reducing suffering is not something that needs to be done for another world; it is something that needs to be done simply because we know what kind of feelings these are, and we should try to make others happy just as we ourselves would like to.
It is also the definition of an advanced society. An advanced society works from within an illusion and seeks to achieve a connection between happiness and the suffering of the world. In other words, when one person suffers, the world suffers, and when people are happy, the world is happy.
Awareness of the illusion also makes the concept of virtual worlds a bit more interesting. Once you take into account the illusion, it becomes much less strange to look for pleasure in alternative fantasy worlds. These other worlds ultimately give us the same thing that we get from the "real" world, the actual injection. What is the difference where it comes from?
In general, I do not see this awareness completely dull, which I am sure will be the main reason for complaints (and as a result, the reason for denying this awareness). But at the same time, to see this as evidence of a total lack of meaning in your lives, let's make a distinction between internal motivation and the motivation that we can create ourselves. Let's use this awareness to create our own meaning.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/377409/
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