Is life, avareged over all humans, a net positive or negative?

Great Debates
1

Do you think that life, taking into account the experiences of all humans in the world (all the people who are successful, healthy, happy, etc, and all the people who are depressed, die from horrible diseases, suffer chronic pain, lonely, etc) is a net positive or negative? Is life, averaged over all humans, worth it?

And by worth it, I mean something like the following: imagine you could create a new world (e.g. create a new universe in the lab, or design a new world in a computer simulation, or something like that), and in that world there would be entities that are like humans in every respect, in terms of self-awareness, intelligence, ability to feel happiness and pain, etc, and you knew that if you created this world, these entities would go through the same triumphs (meeting the love of your life, succeeding in your life goals, be surrounded by great friends and family, scientific breakthroughs, artistic achievements, etc) and bad things (e.g. war, disease, divorce, murder, loneliness, chronic pain, mental disorders, depression, etc) we go through as a species.

In the scenario described above, would you go ahead and create that world, or think “nah” and decide to not create it?

2

Me personally? I would simply because it beats having nothing. As a human being who has “self-awareness” (can you tell I’ve been reading the other thread) I do not like the idea of having never been.

Is life a net positive or negative according to the universe? It’s neither. It just is what it is. The universe does not have opinions. It does not get a dopamine release if it gets what it wants. It does not feel good or bad. It’s just that guy in the back watching everything, but not giving a crap what he sees.

3

Your presumptions are so numerous and vague that it’s impossible to figure out what your question means in the first place.

You can’t examine, analyze, figure out, study, observe or speculate about human society unless you acknowledge the fact that emotional gratification is a bio-chemical based process that seems to be a worthless byproduct of the brain.

Your question is based on mainly emotional states of human beings, and whether they are or will be positive or negative, whatever that means. You may also be asking something like “do you you think I can be happy?”

All this is irrelevant to the universe. The interesting thing is that humans are aware of their own existence, which is flooded with emotions like your presumptions, and they can improve it if they want to, by dismissing meaningless ideas and conditions like the ones you describe in your message to describe who is “happy”.

4

Answering that would tell you a lot about me, but not so much about everyone else.

Could life be better? Of course. Could it be worse? Of course. So what?

Since very few people commit suicide, I’d say that “life” as averaged across all people is “worth it”.

5

For the love of God… the above is obvious.

The universe does not have opinions, but you do. The question is: are you OK if entities in the universe you create experience severe pain (i.e. go through bio-chemical or electrical states that their self-aware consciousness interprets as ‘pain’, if you want to be pedantic). Would you choose to create this world if the distribution of happiness and pain in the universe you create exactly mimics what we see in our word?

6

I would not.

7

Your question is meaningless.

You’re asking if someone had the ability to fine tune “pain” and “happiness” to the today’s averages then would he/she do it?

Your hypothetical falls into the vast ocean of meaningless questions that ask: if (impossible scenario) then (wishful thinking answer).

It’s impossible to do, therefore your question is meaningless.

If you’re trying to justify hurt, pain, suffering or other similar situations in human beings, that would be a different story altogether.

8

If I’m part of that world in my current condition, absolutely. If I’m not part of that world, then I couldn’t care less.

What is my alternative if I don’t get to create the world? I exist somewhere outside of this world as an isolated entity? Maybe I’d create the world just so I had something to watch and wasn’t bored.

9

I’m not asking if your life is worth it, I’m asking if you think that, averaged over all humans, it’s worth it. Of course, it’s practically impossible for any one of us to “average over all humans” because it’s impossible to feel what every person alive is feeling, but, to the best of your knowledge, based on your observations of what happens to people across the country and across the world, would you create a world with the same distribution of pleasure and pain?

I don’t think the fact that someone decides not to commit suicide is proof that they think their life is worth it. We are so hard-wired to fear death that one’s decision not to end their own life cannot be interpreted as a vote that their life is worth it.

10

“Worth it” is subjective, and you can’t average subjectvity. I can say that I would personally not create suffering.

11

Buddha got it wrong. Existence is not all suffering. Overall, life is good.

12

Wrong. I’m not asking anyone to fine tune anything. The distribution of pleasure and pain in the universe you will create is not something you will fine-tune, but something that is an inevitable consequence of the way that universe is built. So, the question is that, given that inevitable distribution of pleasure and pain, would you choose to create that universe?

If you don’t want to consider the creation of this new universe even as a hypothetical, you are welcome to not answer the question.

13

I’m doing you a favor of pointing out how meaningless your question is.

So, now, you are predetermining the fate of any hypothetical universe that could be created by any human being and you presume that the universe the random human being creates can have the exact same levels of happiness and misery that will be agreeable to your perception?

I think you are way off target here. Your question is a religious one, therefore invalid, false and irrelevant.

14

So, the fact that these self-aware entities will experience pain is of no concern to you, since you are not part of their world? Do you “not care less” about people you don’t know feeling pain in our world? If you do, what’s the difference? “Our world” and “That world” are meaningless distinctions. In both cases we are talking about self-aware entities experiencing some states (bio-chemical, electrical, or other) that they perceive as pain. It’s hard to see caring about self-aware entities experiencing these states in one world but not in another.

So, you’re OK to watch a young 30-year old father die of cancer and leave behind his beloved wife and kids, just so you won’t get bored? Is it because you consider these entities to not be real, so anything that happens to them is of no consequence? If that’s the case, I personally think that as long as an entity is self-aware and can experience pain, I don’t see the difference if that entity is in my world or in another.

But to answer your question about the hypothetical, no, you are not an isolated entity. You are John Mace, and someone invites you to their lab and you can either push or not push a button to create a new universe with properties like our own.

15

Thank you so very much

16

You’re welcome.

Emotional contexts are always useless, meaningless and only confuse people when they try to deal with reality.

17

I agree that you can’t “average” it, but you can consider the full spectrum of experiences and decide if, overall, you are OK with creating this spectrum of experiences.

Some people might focus on the positive experiences, and say that, as long as some people will experience the heights of human happiness, they are OK with creating this universe.

Some people might focus on the suffering, and say that, as long as some people will experience the extreme lows of human suffering, they are not OK with creating this universe.

Some people might try to look at the overall distribution of happiness and suffering before they decide whether they are OK with creating this universe.

You seem to fall under the second group.

18

What if I could push a button and wipe out that 30-year old and his family to prevent them from “suffering”? What if, instead of being in a lab where I could push a button to create another earth, I was in a different lab where I could completely wipe out another earth, painlessly? If the existence of “suffering” is the measure of goodness, then I can be the best person in the world by being the biggest mass murderer in history.

19

There’s a difference between killing them and simply never creating them in the first place. that which never existed cannot be harmed.

20

Not the way **Polerius **has phrased it.