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Sun 2 Apr, 2017 12:08 pm
Our good feelings (good moods) are the awareness of good value and worth to us in our lives. They are the awareness of joy, beauty, happiness, love, inspiration, etc. No way of thinking or attitude alone without your good feelings can give you this awareness. It is really no different than how no thought or attitude alone can give you the awareness of physical pain, sight, hearing, or smell when you are blind, deaf, can't smell, and are not in physical pain.
You can think to yourself and have the optimistic attitude that your life has good value and worth to you without your good feelings, but you would not actually be aware of that. Therefore, nothing would have any real good value and worth to you and you would only be fooling and deluding yourself into thinking otherwise. This whole concept also applies to our bad feelings (bad moods) and having neither our good nor bad feelings.
Our good and bad feelings are, therefore, chemical messages to our brains that tell us that certain things are good, bad, and worth something to us. It is the evolutionary definition of good, bad, and worth that scientists have yet to discover. This is my definition of good, bad, worth, joy, beauty, suffering, misery, etc. It is based upon my own personal experience.
I think certain things in life can hold good value in their own right such as that it was a good thing that we have freedom and democracy. You can sit there without your good feelings all you like and acknowledge how good this is. But none of that would actually be good to you. In order to experience (become aware) of the beautiful good value this has, then you need to feel good from that.
Any good value and worth in the lives of others or things and situations that hold good value and worth in their own right cannot be anything of good value and worth to us without our good feelings. For example, if you were blind and deaf, then you can acknowledge that others have sight and hearing. But that cannot be of any real sight and hearing to you.
Actually, according to my definition of good and bad, then I don't think there would be situations or things out there that would hold any good value, bad value, worth, joy, beauty, etc. in their own right and it is simply only a matter of our good and bad feelings that dictate the good and bad value and worth in our lives.
@MozartLink,
MozartLink wrote:
Our good feelings (good moods) are the awareness of good value and worth to us in our lives. They are the awareness of joy, beauty, happiness, love, inspiration, etc. No way of thinking or attitude alone without your good feelings can give you this awareness. It is really no different than how no thought or attitude alone can give you the awareness of physical pain, sight, hearing, or smell when you are blind, deaf, can't smell, and are not in physical pain.
You can think to yourself and have the optimistic attitude that your life has good value and worth to you without your good feelings, but you would not actually be aware of that. Therefore, nothing would have any real good value and worth to you and you would only be fooling and deluding yourself into thinking otherwise. This whole concept also applies to our bad feelings (bad moods) and having neither our good nor bad feelings.
Our good and bad feelings are, therefore, chemical messages to our brains that tell us that certain things are good, bad, and worth something to us. It is the evolutionary definition of good, bad, and worth that scientists have yet to discover. This is my definition of good, bad, worth, joy, beauty, suffering, misery, etc. It is based upon my own personal experience.
I think certain things in life can hold good value in their own right such as that it was a good thing that we have freedom and democracy. You can sit there without your good feelings all you like and acknowledge how good this is. But none of that would actually be good to you. In order to experience (become aware) of the beautiful good value this has, then you need to feel good from that.
Any good value and worth in the lives of others or things and situations that hold good value and worth in their own right cannot be anything of good value and worth to us without our good feelings. For example, if you were blind and deaf, then you can acknowledge that others have sight and hearing. But that cannot be of any real sight and hearing to you.
Actually, according to my definition of good and bad, then I don't think there would be situations or things out there that would hold any good value, bad value, worth, joy, beauty, etc. in their own right and it is simply only a matter of our good and bad feelings that dictate the good and bad value and worth in our lives.
Let's dial this down for a second because you are so captivated by this. How about something simple?
They invent a drug that induces happiness, joy, removes pain, worry and fear with zero side effects.
Now the question becomes;
If you take this drug does your life all of a sudden have value?
If you stop taking the drug does your life all of a sudden stop having value?
@Krumple,
Yes, that would be correct. This is because I am able to realize the experience these good feelings are which would be that they are the awareness of good value and worth in my life.
@MozartLink,
Do you think information exists ?
If you do you realize it has an order right ?
Such order relates you with other stuff with distinct magnitudes, fair ?
There you have the relation between information value and stuff.
@Fil Albuquerque,
My definition of good and bad does not leave out order.
@MozartLink,
Pay attention to the 3 question/suggestion.
@Fil Albuquerque,
But you define good and bad differently. I don't understand how that refutes my definition of good and bad. I personally think your definition is wrong.
@MozartLink,
MozartLink wrote:
Yes, that would be correct. This is because I am able to realize the experience these good feelings are which would be that they are the awareness of good value and worth in my life.
I'm also going to hit on Fil's post because it reminded me of the importance of information in value sets.
I saw a documentary long ago that blew my mind. It was on people who are born without pain receptors. They do not feel physical pain at all.
This might sound great but it's not. Almost all of them become blind because as babies they tear their own eyes out. They bite off their own tongues. If they manage to make it out of infancyhood (most die from infections due to breaking limbs gone untreated) they have very difficult lives.
One of the young girls who survived into her teens had been treated for dozens of broken bones and hyperextension joints. No ability to feel pain she would step on glass barefoot playing and she would cut her foot to pieces oblivious.
Now the point I'm getting to is the value this pain has. If you were like them your life would be similar to theirs.
Pain has a positive value. How can I assess this?
If you didn't have pain receptors chances are you would be blind, have difficulty speaking because of a chewed off tongue and major physical injuries.
You attribute pain as detraction however I just gave you an argument that negates your negative value of pain.
I can do the same for the emotions you attribute as negative as well but then this would get really long and tomorrow you would just post another thread saying the same thing you have been in the last 8 threads. So I won't.
@MozartLink,
How about in the order of things "good" is close and "bad" is far and alien ?
Now get to the third one once more. Mind that you relate to both things not talking transcendently far.
@Fil Albuquerque,
If we chose Physics for metaphor close is "good" because it saves you energy while far is "bad" because it requires work effort and expending more energy.
@Krumple,
I'll just stick to this thread then and won't create any other. The pain would still not have good value even in that situation. The situation you have presented would be nothing more than a hazardous situation. But it would be nothing bad. It is only our bad feelings that would allow that situation to be perceived as bad. So, if the baby felt pain, then that would tell the baby that the situation is bad. But the idea that the pain is a good thing is false because the only way to perceive the pain as being good would be if you felt good from the idea of pain being a safeguard.
@MozartLink,
No. What you saying is nothing more than stating oranges are not apples. Not making a case for what is actually bad or good.
Pain was a Darwinian advantageous evolved process. Pain is an alarm clock that presses you to solve a problem. It's useful.
You see you want to avoid some degree of abstraction but you can't.
@Fil Albuquerque,
The abstract situations are still involved here. I did not leave them out. I am not merely presenting good and bad in a vacuum here. When I say that good feelings give your life good value and worth, then I am not taking that statement out of context. I am putting that within the context of other situations and things. When a certain situation, idea, or thing makes you feel good, then that situation, idea, or thing becomes of good value and worth to you.
@MozartLink,
...oh common be fair. You can take a shot of heroin n feel quite good while you die.
Is that good or bad or both, eh ???
@Fil Albuquerque,
Since I felt good, then that situation would only be good to me. It would not be bad to me at all. The only way it can be bad to me would be if I felt bad from that.
@MozartLink,
You confounding perception feeling good with fact your body dying.
That's you problem you really can't abstract enough.
@Fil Albuquerque,
There would be a different situation going on at a biological scale that I would perceive as having good value to me through my good feelings. It would be a generalized state of well being through getting shot up by the heroin. But the situation that I am going to die cannot have any good or bad value to me since I am neither feeling good nor bad from that situation.
@MozartLink,
MozartLink wrote:
There would be a different situation going on at a biological scale that I would perceive as having good value to me through my good feelings. It would be a generalized state of well being through getting shot up by the heroin. But the situation that I am going to die cannot have any good or bad value to me since I am neither feeling good nor bad from that situation.
Fil keeps beating me to the punch.
But a consequence to this line of reasoning is one such example;
Killing babies brings me joy. Therefore my life has value as long as I'm murdering babies?
Its it really that simple? You base value purely on ONLY the ideal emotions?
@Krumple,
Yes, your life would have good value to you regardless of the idea that you will be sentenced to prison. It is only once you get sentenced to prison and feel miserable that your life would have bad value to you. However, in the meantime, as long as you are feeling good, then the idea that you would be sent to prison is not a bad situation to you, but is instead a situation that you would want to avoid. But, again, that is not the same thing as bad.
@MozartLink,
MozartLink wrote:
Yes, your life would have good value to you regardless of the idea that you will be sentenced to prison. It is only once you get sentenced to prison and feel miserable that your life would have bad value to you. However, in the meantime, as long as you are feeling good, then the idea that you would be sent to prison is not a bad situation to you, but is instead a situation that you would want to avoid. But, again, that is not the same thing as bad.
Please what ever you do, don't become a politician. I think we already have to many who think like you explained.
In my opinion your synopsis is selfish and lacks empathy for yourself and others.
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