I am going to side with renfr here.
I strongly object to destruction of emotion.
Maybe part of it is because of my dabbling in Nietzsche's books when I was in early HS and even more impressionable than I am now, but I think that emotions, good or bad, are very valuable to us. Forgive me if I get pseudophilosophical here.
Are your emotions really that troubling? Is it really that much of a hell inside your head? Sure emotions are troublesome, like a child is troublesome, but I wouldn't kill the child. There are highs and lows, but that is part of being human, am I right? That is part of the experience. You deal with the highs and the lows and work to maximize the highs and minimize the lows. Saying 'screw it' and just throwing it all away, you might as well be dead (don't take that the wrong way). Seriously, without emotions, what purpose is there to live? The only purpose I feel in life is hope of being happy, hope of falling in love, hope of overcoming challenges and coming out of the other side happy. Maybe it is just because I am young and stupid, but I think it is at least worth fighting to the death for.
There are certain aspects of zen/Buddhism (as I understand it, which may not be correct) that I agree with, and certain ones I disagree with. I do believe in what I understand to be the appreciation aspect of zen, to observe everything and appreciate subtleties, etc. However, what is nirvana? Is it just giving in, and being calmly content and kinda happy, like the tired and mildly euphoric state after you eat a large meal and lean back in a comfy chair? There is certainly a time and a place for relaxation and being care free, but it is only in complement to actually doing and experiencing things.
Believe me, I love relaxation. I love, on vacation, to just sit in a comfy chair and drift away, even better if it is near an ocean or lake. But what about the rest of life? Haven't you ever flirted with someone? For the love of god, even I have done that, and I am someone who hasn't even left their house in a month and a half except to go to visit my father. For fucks sake, I have been like this my entire life, barely able to even come up with words around people, alone unless I am at school, and mostly alone even there. I am certain you know what it is like to make the connection, when there is like a lazer between the two of you, and it is like a rythm or something, like the greatest music video to the sound of the world, like the feelings from music, but a thousand times over. And, I mean, that is just one aspect. There are millions of things to experience and explore. Going to Greece, the top of an old acropolis and looking at the mountains around it, holy shit, that feeling where you are like half-crying. And maybe you become disillusioned with the mountains, or the flirting leads to an unhappy marriage, but you do something about it. You find new things that invoke the feelings, you resolve the marriage, even if it means divorce. That is the purpose, and it is what we do. You don't just give it up.
Maybe you accidentally become infatuated with the wrong person. Maybe they hate you, but you just can't get them out of your mind, maybe for a year or a year and a half. But you have to out last it, and there is pleasure even in shit like that. You just have to enjoy the ride, and when you are sick of it, remember in that one sane part of your brain not feeling so incredibly painfully lonely that all the emotions are part of being you. The good times will come. And if they don't then you have enjoyed your struggle.
Why just be a robot in a constant mild state of euphoria? Just do everything automatically? Just go through the motions while you are happily content? That doesn't sound like a plan to me. What about being happy and living forever? What about enthusiasm and discovery? Wouldn't you miss them? Or, maybe a better question since you wouldn't be able to care, don't you want to preserve them like you want to preserve your life? If your emotions aren't you, then what is? Just a cold, objective, organic calculator?
The point of that calculator is to serve the emotions, in a way. We are essentially organic heuristic computers that are self-aware. Maybe we are like a version of
Lenat's Eurisko, programmed by evolution to survive, evolving more and more complex systems that help us reproduce until the point that we evolve a system that makes us realize that we don't want to reproduce, we want to live forever, the best way to get the best life is to break the way it works and
ignore the evolutionary goal. But it doesn't matter because there isn't some sort of natural imperative to any sort of thing. There isn't a purpose besides the one we have created for our emotions through the screwed up evolution.
Without the emotions, what is really the point? I mean, I guess if you just want to be contentedly mildly euphoric. But there isn't any purpose in the sake of progress or anything. If we kill the scoring system of the heuristic, what is the computer working for? What is the goal then? What good does progress do if you don't have emotions to enjoy it?
A lot of the time, I feel like it is hell inside my head, but maybe I don't really know what hell is because there is always that small part that reminds me it will be okay later, and that suffering is necessary for progress because it implies that there is something to progress for. There must be a way to improve it. There must be a way that I will be able to talk to people and focus right so that I can enjoy things, and I'll be damned if I won't try until I either find a solution or it kills me. I don't think I am alone on this. This is a life extension and medical improvement forum. Isn't our entire purpose to solve the problems, not to just give in? Aren't we here because we don't want to be life's bitch? Otherwise, why not just drown ourselves in lithium and SSRIs and call it a day?
Sorry, I just have a lot of emotions (and I love them to death :3).
Anyway, that movie looks pretty good. Going to watch it probably tomorrow or something. Got a 7.6 on IMDB, impressive enough to warrant my watch.
Edited by brainslugged, 11 June 2013 - 08:31 AM.
