# Why are we alive?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 25, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200 "2009-07-25T04:36:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/101 "2009-08-06T18:46:15Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> I of course meant _internal_ rewards, that is, “good” emotions.
> I’m well aware of your position.
Then why did you ask a question you already knew the answer to?
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Didn’t find any cites eh? All the sites on cognitive neurology said that emotion _influences_ behaviour but does not _dictate_ it, didn’t they?
>
> Well, sure, I can provide a cite on neurochemistry. However, I obviously don’t agree with the absurd straw man you just invited in – that anything neurochemical has nothing to do with neural signalling. :rolleyes:
> In fact, I’m going to add that paragraph to the list of **begbert2** classic quotes.
I didn’t even look for cites, because your position was nonsense. You asserted as a fact that “‘emotion’ has a clear meaning in neurobiology and demonstrably it is not the case that it motivates our every action”. For this to have any _chance_ of being true, you’d have to have _decoded human cognition_. There is no other way to know that, while _some_ emotions may be caused by or may cause dopamine or whatever to emitted in measurable levels, that other emotional responses are not occurring amongst the electrical signals in the neurons, at a subconscious level within the decision-making process(es).
And I kind of doubt that we _have_ cracked human cognition to that level, or we’d have seen it being simulated in computers by now. So yeah. I think that for all your vaunted claimed knowledge of neurobiology and cognition, that you are making vast overstatements about human knowledge on the subject to the level of making shit up to support/assert your position.
So yeah, if it really IS a fact that “‘emotion’ has a clear meaning in neurobiology and demonstrably it is not the case that it motivates our every action”, then CITE. News articles on the sentient computer-simulation will be accepted.
But please, do keep mindlessly repeating quotes. As many of them as you can fit in! I can’t be the only person who sees it as a spectacularly juvenile way to fill posts in leu of actual reasoned argument, and I can’t be the only person who has noticed that you haven’t yet managed to explain what’s so incomprehensible about the _first_ quote (well, incomprehensible to persons who aren’t _you_). So yeah. Keep waving that flag! It says more than I ever could about the kind of argument you are engaging in.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> :smack::smack::smack:
>
> You still haven’t actually responded to my argument here, so let me try again.
>
> You won’t allow for the fact that we “just are” motivated by things like curiosity and aggression. You keep asking _why_ we’re motivated in that way, that there must be some underlying motivation (e.g. sometimes we act out our curiosity because it will make us happy).
> But it’s a turtles explanation because it requires as a given that we “just are” always motivated by happiness / reducing misery.
> I can turn your argument around and ask _why_ are we motivated by happiness / reducing misery?
This after you say you are “well aware” of my position.
Look, smart guy. There are two dots here. “Motivations” and “actions”. You utterly fail to connect them. In order to be _able_ to connect them, it **MUST** be the case that there is something that directly triggers actual activity. That is, there must be _something_ that the brain “just is” responsive to as a motivator for action.
Best I can tell, your model is to just take all the motivations and just throw them into a big pile on the brain’s doorstep, and say “we just act on those”, while refusing to state or theorize on _how_ the brain manages to decide which motivations matter the most to it, and while categorically _refusing_ my explanation (which we’ll note that, aside from the label of “happiness” on the normalized comparison metric, is logically _required_ to be true). As best I can tell, you are refusing my theory for no logical or rational reason whatsoever. Best I can tell, you just hate the idea that we’re “selfish” :rolleyes:, and so will reject any theory that may vaguely suggest that conclusion regardless of how obvious or necessarily true that theory may be.
You ask, again, while ignoring my prior answers, why I won’t allow for the fact that we “just are” motivated by things like curiosity and aggression. The answer is obvious - because you’re failing to explain **which one wins**. Suppose you see something that you’re both curious about, _and_ wish to instantly destroy. You can’t both crush it immidiately _and_ take the time to study it - so which do you do? Which motivation wins?
This is the part where you start handwaving like you’re trying to singlehandedly power a wind farm, and where I calmly point out that the emotional reaction we have to denying our curiousity and the emotional reaction we have to denying our aggression are (unlike the curiousity and aggression themselves), a normalized comparable measure which can be used to choose which motivation to deny based on which denial would bother us more. And _that_ is the point where you go apeshit at the idea that we could make a decision based on how much the outcomes bother us. And thus, here we are.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> It was a slip.
> But I don’t know why you have such a problem with the world pleasure; it doesn’t imply euphoria (you can have a “pleasant commute” for example), and actually seems less loaded to me than “happiness”. But fine.
Okay, it was a slip, accepted.
I’m sensitive because when I see that from you here I susect a possible deliberate attempt to slip in a backdoor to punk my response with later. Sorry, but your agrument style here hasn’t exactly inspired confidence or trust.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Well, it’s complicated. Current thinking is that there are at least 3 decision-making mechanisms in the brain; the Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective. And these are not abstract; they have separate loci in the brain.
>
> The Behavioural layer is the only layer affected at all by emotions, and it is not dictated by them. And this layer is not at the highest level. If any layer can be considered to be “in charge”, it would be the Reflective.
Depends on how you define “in charge”, I suppose. (And how you define “emotions” - as you _clearly_ know, since you are ‘well aware’ of my argument, the emotional reaction that drives the final decision-making must of logical necessity be a normalized continuum, to enable it to be possible to make comparisons of it. So by the time we get to this level, all the curiosity and aggression and whatnot have been streamlined into just the linear emotion reacion to satisfying or denying them.)
But regardless, all you have done is turn one question into four - how do each of the Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective decision-making mechanisms normalize and compare conflicting motivations, and how do those three results get merged into one final action. And as for the answers to those four questions - well, at least the breeze from all this handwaving is refreshing.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> What data?
Personal observation. People seem to tend not to do things that the very idea of makes them unhappy. And they seem to tend to choose amongst varying motivations based on emotional responses to expected outcomes.
Admittedly, your theory of how conflicts between motivations are resolved may explain these observations just as well. Except that you don’t seem to have any such theory.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> This is the typical kind of flip-flopping that creeps into the “there’s no such thing as a selfless act” debate.
>
> One minute you’re using words like happiness. The next minute you’re saying that you just mean the “best” option, and that any decision-making machine can be said to be seeking happiness, even, say, a chess computer.
>
> Well, those are two different things. Of course any decision-making system must ultimately make decisions so it must consider some options better than others. I’ve already said that many times.
>
> But to the hypothesis that that criteria is about inducing or preventing _a feeling_, a psychological state, whether now or in the future, this is simply not the case.
I’m not flip-flopping at all, of course. The “best” option is the one that is assessed in the moment of decision as having the most positive/least negative value on the normalized comparison metric I’m discussing here.
In a chess computer, this normalized comparison metric is probably not called “happiness”. Even in humans, calling it “the happiness/misery continuum”, as I have been doing, is something of a word overload, because as you have irrelevently noted “happiness” (well, “pleasure”) can be used to refer to a specific emotional state that isn’t even on a continuum (and thus is clearly not what I’m talking about). However as best I can tell human behavoior demonstrates that this normalized comparison metric in humans does correlate with emotional response, specifically positive and negative reactions to things.
And it’s kind of bizarre that anyone would think that a discussion of normalized comparitive measures lines up in _any_ meaningful way with the pejoritave term “selfish”. But clearly you’re still hanging on to that…because as best I can tell that negative emotional reaction you’re having to accepting the “selfish” label is the only reason you’re disagreeing with me at all.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> If I punch some guy, it’s not to feel good: I’ll probably feel “shaken up” for quite some time afterwards. But yeah, for whatever conscious reason at the time, I obviously consider it a good idea.
Whoops, you forgot to say why you DID punch the guy. Probably because I could trivially reduce that to it being an outcome that is percieved at the moment of action as more emotionally satisfying overall than refraining from punching him would be.
Presuming you actually were “well aware” of what my argument was, you’d realize that for a counterexample to work, you’d need to demonstrate that the _actual_ causes of an event could not possibly be traced to any emotional reaction of any kind. Gesturing vaguely to the fact that not all choices result in PLEASURE is obviously no problem for _my_ position.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> I know, it’s odd isn’t it? And I’m not just an AI-geek; I’m now persuing a career in neuroimaging, and studying the brain and cognition.
> So…why can’t I agree with your theory? It’s a mystery…
No, it’s pretty obvious - you can’t stand the thought that the word “selfish” could come within fifty miles of you. So in rejection of that, you compromise your argument, your knowledge, your position, your presentation of yourself…
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Well, that’s your basic assertion, and it’s incorrect. Again, where’s that cite?
Observable human behavior, and the fact that a normalized comparative measure is a _logical necessity_. Where’s your counterargument? Where’s your alternate theory?
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> So again, you’ve refused to answer the question. Probably because the prediction of your own theory seems absurd even to you.
Nope. I’m just trying to avoid getting my foot stuck in a wordplay beartrap. Not that you would **ever** argue dishonestly…
But seriously. If after your cognition has considered the way you would emotionally react to all the availably actions (based on your preferences, goals, tastes, knowledge, robotic implants, current mood, etc), if it has concluded that killing your kid is the avenue action that inspires the most positive emotional response, then you’ll kill your kid. Totally. Yes. You will. Period.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> But fine, I can answer it. Even with an arbitrary amount of pleasure for harming babies, a person will not necessarily become a killer. Such a decision would be made at a conscious level and involve conscious reasoning. Such reasoning is (obviously) not entirely motivated by happiness, so even if it were clear that the happiness of killing would far outweigh any feelings of regret, there is no reason to assume a person would kill.
Assert, assert, assert, handwave, handwave, handwave. If not based on emotional reactions, then _what in the name of the FSM’s left meatball **does** _ make a person decide to kill? Or to drive to the supermarket? Or do anything?
You can shout “No! No! No!” like a petulant child all day, but until you can come up with a better idea _or_ show why my idea is wrong (besides baselessly shouting “absurd” and “obviously”, that is), then there is no rational reason to care that you have a hard time accepting reality.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/102 "2009-08-07T01:34:16Z")
> [@Nation](#):
>
> Seriously, whats the point? If there is no life after death or consequences for our actions, then whats the point of life? I dont mean “oh my life is terrible why am i alive i wish i were dead” shit, but the actual point of existing.
>
> Animals will do just about anything to stay alive, or protect their young, but to what end? Just to procreate and keep the cycle going?
Yep. That’s what life does - it lives and reproduces itself.
And there is no “point”. Life just is.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/103 "2009-08-07T13:47:47Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> A person who loathes themselves may feel that justice and good is served by punishing or hurting that which is loathsome. They are distressed (made more miserable) by the sense of the loathsome going unpunished. To alleviate that distress, to reduce their misery, to increase their (meagar) happiness, they self-harm with the goal of satisfying their inner need to attack that which they loathe and thereby hope to reduce their misery/improve their happiness.
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Prove that the electrical signals transmitted between our neurons have nothing to do with our emotions. At any level. Because that’s what you’re saying by attributing it all to the neurochemicals.
Your responses are getting longer and longer, **begbert2** and yet hardly any of what you write actually addresses the points I make.
In fact, ironically, the bulk of your response is just you accusing me of low debating tactics.
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Then why did you ask a question you already knew the answer to?
This is the kind of thing I mean.
So the question was, several posts ago: “But _why_ must we always do what collects the most rewards”?
I _don’t_ already know the answer to this question, because I don’t agree with the premise that the question is based on; that emotions are the ultimate motivator of all actions. However, since you agree with the implicit premise, you _can_ answer that question. But haven’t.
> [@](#):
>
> I didn’t even look for cites, because your position was nonsense.
So when you said “You first” on providing a cite, you were simply being dishonest, because you had no intention of doing the same.
> [@](#):
>
> For this to have any chance of being true, you’d have to have decoded human cognition.
> …
> So yeah, if it really IS a fact that “‘emotion’ has a clear meaning in neurobiology and demonstrably it is not the case that it motivates our every action”, then CITE. News articles on the sentient computer-simulation will be accepted.
So saying that emotion has a clear neurobiological meaning, and we know that it’s not the ultimate determinator of actions, means I must also assert that we’ve completely decoded human cognition. :rolleyes:
Note also, that my cite defends the exact thing I said, and you have simply chosen to ignore it. Instead you cry “CITE”, again, even as you fail to provide any yourself.
> [@](#):
>
> Best I can tell, your model is to just take all the motivations and just throw them into a big pile on the brain’s doorstep, and say “we just act on those”, while refusing to state or theorize on how the brain manages to decide which motivations matter the most to it
Obviously something has to win. We have to make a decision. I’ve said this countless times now in this thread. What I’m disputing is that this thing has an emotional basis.
Or that there’s any evidence to date of a persistent, localised “scoring” mechanism in the brain. We (often) consciously make decisions.
> [@](#):
>
> But regardless, all you have done is turn one question into four - how do each of the Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective decision-making mechanisms normalize and compare conflicting motivations, and how do those three results get merged into one final action.
Well, we don’t know yet, but any assertions that they go through one central scoring mechanism or that it’s emotion-based seem difficult to reconcile with this system. But hey, forget the neurology, **bigbert2** already has the answer.
> [@](#):
>
> Personal observation. People seem to tend not to do things that the very idea of makes them unhappy. And they seem to tend to choose amongst varying motivations based on emotional responses to expected outcomes.
Actually personal observation does not confirm your theory. Not without ad-hockery.
Consciously, I have lots of reasons for doing things. Your theory requires that whatever I _think_ my reasons are, there must be some unconscious, emotion-oriented reason of which I am unaware, and there’s no evidence for, that is the _reason_ for that reason.
Consider the gymnastics that would be required to explain _habit_. When I act out of habit, and do something that, in retrospect, I think I didn’t enjoy, what’s the happiness-based explanation of that behaviour? (and beware; I’m laying a trap with this question :D)
> [@](#):
>
> And it’s kind of bizarre that anyone would think that a discussion of normalized comparitive measures lines up in any meaningful way with the pejoritave term “selfish”. But clearly you’re still hanging on to that…because as best I can tell that negative emotional reaction you’re having to accepting the “selfish” label is the only reason you’re disagreeing with me at all.
The “no such thing as a selfless act” argument is a common phrasing of the psychological egoist position. Your position started out as psychological hedonism, I think, but seems now to have broadened to the same egoist position. So, yeah, it does line up actually.
Have a look at the [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism) for egotism. You’ll see that it describes your position very well, and (quelle suprise) that I am far from the only one with this apparent “hang up” about selfishness.
(It’s interesting that I only just stumbled across this page, and yet several of the arguments I’ve used are there).
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### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/104 "2009-08-07T17:55:29Z")
> [@Clothahump](#):
>
> Yep. That’s what life does - it lives and reproduces itself.
>
> And there is no “point”. Life just is.
Is there no point to evolution?
Is there no point to gravity?
Is there no point to experience, knowledge, or wisdom.
Of course, there is a point to life, you just haven’t found it yet.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/105 "2009-08-07T18:03:18Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Your responses are getting longer and longer, **begbert2** and yet hardly any of what you write actually addresses the points I make.
> In fact, ironically, the bulk of your response is just you accusing me of low debating tactics.
I post longer and longer because some irrational part of me thinks that maybe you really _don’t_ understand me, and thus, require further explanation.
And I accuse you of low debating tactics becase another part of me disagrees with the first part.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> This is the kind of thing I mean.
> So the question was, several posts ago: “But _why_ must we always do what collects the most rewards”?
> I _don’t_ already know the answer to this question, because I don’t agree with the premise that the question is based on; that emotions are the ultimate motivator of all actions. However, since you agree with the implicit premise, you _can_ answer that question. But haven’t.
This doesn’t make any sense at all. Not a single lick of it.
You are stating that you understand my position - that is, that you know that, by my argument, Premise -\> Answer, and you know the path it uses to get there.
Then you say that you “don’t agree with my premise”, and cite that as the reason for not accepting the answer - despite the fact that you perfectly understand the Premise -\> Answer argument. Note that this doesn’t mean you don’t _know_ the answer - it means you don’t _accept_ it. There’s a difference. (To most people.)
And then you demand that I answer the question - despite you already knowing the answer - and with a full knowledge that I will still be basing the answer on my “premises”.
Unless your only goal is to try and baffle me with bullshit (which I _hardly_ rule out), or unless you _don’t_ understand my position (which also is not outside the realm of possibility), then Odin only knows what in Hel you hope to accomplish with this type of questioning. It literally _cannot_ accomplish anything productive. Not that you seem to be dedicated to being productive, but still: what the Hel?
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> So when you said “You first” on providing a cite, you were simply being dishonest, because you had no intention of doing the same.
I’m not sure what kind of logic makes it dishonest to dismiss fraudulent attempts to shift the burden of proof based on illogical and false assertions.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> So saying that emotion has a clear neurobiological meaning, and we know that it’s not the ultimate determinator of actions, means I must also assert that we’ve completely decoded human cognition. :rolleyes:
>
> Note also, that my cite defends the exact thing I said, and you have simply chosen to ignore it. Instead you cry “CITE”, again, even as you fail to provide any yourself.
Yes, it DOES requyire that you assert that we’ve completely decoded human cognition. As you already know, because you understand my position, as you have said.
As you know, I am asserting that there must be a normalized comparison metric within human cognition - and we don’t need to know anything about brain chemistry to know this, either. The argument is simple: _without_ a normalized comparison metric, it is _impossible to compare things_. This is why you cannot propose an alternate model of cognition that doesn’t include such a metric - no such model can exist unless you wish to propose that humans don’t compare things or make conscious choices, which you apparently don’t. So instead you handwave like mad in a desperate attempt to avoid having to conceding the inevitable.
Note that we reach this point by logical _necessity_; it’s a case of “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. Where comparisons are made, such as between two choices to assess their merit, there simply must be a normalized comparison metric. So I don’t need to cite brain chemistry to prove it’s there.
Your on the other hand are futilely attempting to argue that it _cannot_ be there because you haven’t found in in the neurochemistry. That is, you’re saying that the brain chemistry has _proven_ there are no black swans in it. Now logically you can’t _know_ there are no black swans until you have checked _every single swan_. So, asserting that there are no emotional reactions occurring at the core of in the human decision-making process **requires** you to have checked under every rock. That is, you would have to _completely know how it works_. Completely. Enough to model it and simulate it - _that_ completely.
And we both know this hasn’t happened.
So yeah. I don’t need neurochemical cites - my argument isn’t neurochemical. Your counterargument is, and so requres cites. And because you’re making a _ridiculously_ extraordinary claim about the extent of our knowledge of cognition, you need a _spectacular_ cite.
Good luck with that.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Obviously something has to win. We have to make a decision. I’ve said this countless times now in this thread. What I’m disputing is that this thing has an emotional basis.
In other words, “it happens, I don’t know how, but I know that _your_ theory is wrong because I don’t _like_ it. So, here’s my alternate theory: handwave handwave handwave handwave…”
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Or that there’s any evidence to date of a persistent, localised “scoring” mechanism in the brain. We (often) consciously make decisions.
You don’t believe that humans have moods that are retained from moment to moment? :dubious:
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Well, we don’t know yet, but any assertions that they go through one central scoring mechanism or that it’s emotion-based seem difficult to reconcile with this system. But hey, forget the neurology, **bigbert2** already has the answer.
**bEgbert2** , please. I don’t mind people leaving off the 2, but let’s not get crazy here.
And you don’t seem to realize that you’re arguing that there’s no fire, while we’re all watching the smoke pour off. The mere fact that people _do in fact make decisions_ is _ample_ proof that decisions go through one central scoring mechanism. If that’s difficult to reconcile with the system, well, we all know it’s a complicated system and difficult to understand. We’re willing to give the neurologists time. (Though we’re still not going to accept explanations that fail to account for observable behavior. You know, like _yours_.)
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> Actually personal observation does not confirm your theory. Not without ad-hockery.
>
> Consciously, I have lots of reasons for doing things. Your theory requires that whatever I _think_ my reasons are, there must be some unconscious, emotion-oriented reason of which I am unaware, and there’s no evidence for, that is the _reason_ for that reason.
>
> Consider the gymnastics that would be required to explain _habit_. When I act out of habit, and do something that, in retrospect, I think I didn’t enjoy, what’s the happiness-based explanation of that behaviour? (and beware; I’m laying a trap with this question :D)
Actually personal observation _does_ confirm your theory. Without ad-hockery. Not that that’ll stop you from asserting the opposite until the cows come home riding flying pigs…
It’s easy to speculate on how a person could get into a habit - people are both pattern-detecting devices and also have an emotional attachement to the familiar (cite: the political conservative movement). One could thus speculate that habits are the secular form of rituals: patterns that are established becuase one likes things to be done the same over time. (I know _my_ habits are this way.)
That is one possible explanation for how habits might be formed. There could, of course, be other explanations. I’m only speculating here; I know there’s a fire because I see the smoke, but I can only guess what specific logs are feeding that fire. That’s the job of the neurologists and psychologists to figure out, really.
Of course, you thinking you’re all clever and all, you think you have some trap. (Hopefully you’re bright enough to realize that proposing an alternate explanation isn’t enough to shoot me down in any way.) Regardless, just tell me your stupid trap and be done with it - I tire of playing childish games with you.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> The “no such thing as a selfless act” argument is a common phrasing of the psychological egoist position. Your position started out as psychological hedonism, I think, but seems now to have broadened to the same egoist position. So, yeah, it does line up actually.
>
> Have a look at the [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism) for egotism. You’ll see that it describes your position very well, and (quelle suprise) that I am far from the only one with this apparent “hang up” about selfishness.
> (It’s interesting that I only just stumbled across this page, and yet several of the arguments I’ve used are there).
GODDAMMIT MAN, how many times to I have to remind you I _started out_ with the happiness/misery continuum, not the hedonistic pleasure/pain continuum. Do you get some illicit thrill out of misrepresenting my position, or are you _really incapabable_ of internalizing that I’m not and never have been making the simplistic hedonistic argument?
GOOD GOD.
Ahem.
There are several “levels” at which a person can argue for “selfishness”. A lot of them are obviously wrong. “You only give to charities because you want the tax break.” “You only give to charities because you want to look good.” Stuff that, basically, dismisses large chunks of the human psyche, notably the altruistic inclination that some people are pretty attached to in themselves, and thus react quite angrily when other people dismiss it and basically say that everyone who claims to be altruistic is deliberately lying about it.
However, there is _another_ level where it can be applied, much ‘deeper’ in the cognition, and which _accounts for_ and _includes_ the altruistic inclination and the like. And, coincidentally, it aligns with the decision-making mechanism that logically MUST exist within the cognition. Humans have a normalized decision-making metric by which they assess actions and outcomes. Some they ‘like’. Some they don’t. For various reasons. But when the dust settles, if a person likes the expected outcome of being altrusitic better than they like the expected outcome of keeping that three dollars, then they’ll be altruistic. And of course this decision is made from the personal perspective _because that’s the only perspective they have_. They can’t decide based on the homeless dude’s likes and dislikes; they have do decide based on their own expectation of what will happen and their own level of emotional attachment to any given outcome.
This is clearly a little more complicated a concept than “Mother Theresa was a glory hound, durr!”, despite being in the most simplistic sense the same argument, or at least similar enough to both be called psychological egoism. Certainly they’re simple enough for some people to mix them up - _including_ the twits making the simplistic the hedonistic argument, who then claim that those making the more complex argument are in fact making the simple one (only with more words). This does _not_ help matters.
All the refutations on that page are directed against the simpler form of the argument (except possibly the evolutionary refutation, which is hardly fleshed out). They don’t have any relevence at all to the argument I’m making - not when the wiki says them, and not when you say them.
You may know this, in fact - not just because you _say_ you understand my position, but because you keep _repeatedly_ trying to explicitly _characterize_ my position as the simplistic pleasure argument. Which could be a way to try and attack my position by attacking the other one, because it’s a much easier target - and then you can claim to have defeated my position.
In other words: strawman.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/106 "2009-08-07T18:06:14Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> Is there no point to evolution?
> Is there no point to gravity?
> Is there no point to experience, knowledge, or wisdom.
>
> Of course, there is a point to life, you just haven’t found it yet.
There is no point to evolution and there is no point to gravity.
Experience, knowledge, and wisdom are often gathered with a specific goal in mind, and therefore have a point: forwarding the goal for which they were acquired. Gravity and evolution lack goals.
---
### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/107 "2009-08-07T18:26:40Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> There is no point to evolution and there is no point to gravity.
>
> Experience, knowledge, and wisdom are often gathered with a specific goal in mind, and therefore have a point: forwarding the goal for which they were acquired. Gravity and evolution lack goals.
Contradictions everywhere, if life has no point, then neither does the things of life. If gravity has no point why does it keep on working? Very confused. Here I thought it’s purpose was keeping us humans on the planet, and that is a point.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/108 "2009-08-07T18:45:01Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> Contradictions everywhere, if life has no point, then neither does the things of life. If gravity has no point why does it keep on working? Very confused.
Um, you do realize that I’ve been arguing that human life demonstrably has the goal of making decisions that maximize emotional state, right? In that context, things of life can have a point because life has a point. (Though it’s worth nothing that it gave _itself_ that point - nothing external gave that purpose to it.)
Even if one were to assert that life is pointless overall (perhaps 'cause one way or t’other, we end up as emotionally neutral fertilizer in the end), it’s still a stretch to say that people don’t make goals of various kinds during their life. You can argue that these goals have no _overall_ meaning, but things that are done in pursuit of those pointless goals would still themselves have a point (if not an ultimate one).
And gravity keeps working because that’s just the way things are. There’s no reason to think it has any purpose or reason for working - but it also has no reason to _stop_ working. So it just keeps on working, for no reason but that that’s the way things are.
Edit: Gravity was working a _heck_ of a long time before there were humans on the planet. Even if it _had_ a reason to do its thing, it wouldn’t be that.
---
### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/109 "2009-08-07T20:40:14Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Um, you do realize that I’ve been arguing that human life demonstrably has the goal of making decisions that maximize emotional state, right? In that context, things of life can have a point because life has a point. (Though it’s worth nothing that it gave _itself_ that point - nothing external gave that purpose to it.)
>
> Even if one were to assert that life is pointless overall (perhaps 'cause one way or t’other, we end up as emotionally neutral fertilizer in the end), it’s still a stretch to say that people don’t make goals of various kinds during their life. You can argue that these goals have no _overall_ meaning, but things that are done in pursuit of those pointless goals would still themselves have a point (if not an ultimate one).
> And gravity keeps working because that’s just the way things are. There’s no reason to think it has any purpose or reason for working - but it also has no reason to _stop_ working. So it just keeps on working, for no reason but that that’s the way things are.
>
> Edit: Gravity was working a _heck_ of a long time before there were humans on the planet. Even if it _had_ a reason to do its thing, it wouldn’t be that.
Everything has a reason and a purpose or it would not exist.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/110 "2009-08-07T20:43:29Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> Everything has a reason and a purpose or it would not exist.
Why wouldn’t it?
---
### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/111 "2009-08-07T21:20:32Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Why wouldn’t it?
Because nature hates a vaccuum.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/112 "2009-08-07T21:30:08Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> Because nature hates a vaccuum.
Lest somebody get confused:
**lekatt** states that things without a reason and a purpose would not exist.
I ask _why_ they would not exist.
**lekatt** responds by stating that nature hates a vacuum.
So, if something lacked purpose, it would cease to exist because nature hates it when things don’t exist.
. . .
---
### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/113 "2009-08-07T21:38:10Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Lest somebody get confused:
>
> **lekatt** states that things without a reason and a purpose would not exist.
>
> I ask _why_ they would not exist.
>
> **lekatt** responds by stating that nature hates a vacuum.
> So, if something lacked purpose, it would cease to exist because nature hates it when things don’t exist.
> . . .
Something like that only it wouldn’t exist without a reason.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/114 "2009-08-07T21:51:59Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> Something like that only it wouldn’t exist without a reason.
You keep asserting that, but there isn’t the faintest reason to believe it.
Did you even realize that the reason you gave for things without purpose not being allowed to exist was because “nature” was opposed to not allowing things to exist? This is roughly as sensible as saying that you eat cake because you hate eating cake, or that you try to keep the dirt out of your house because you wish it was completely filled with dirt.
I mean, I know that you don’t require that your arguments make sense for you to believe them utterly, but _jeez_. Is there _no_ level of inherent contradiction that is so obvious that it gives you pause?
---
### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/115 "2009-08-07T22:03:25Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> You keep asserting that, but there isn’t the faintest reason to believe it.
> Did you even realize that the reason you gave for things without purpose not being allowed to exist was because “nature” was opposed to not allowing things to exist? This is roughly as sensible as saying that you eat cake because you hate eating cake, or that you try to keep the dirt out of your house because you wish it was completely filled with dirt.
>
> I mean, I know that you don’t require that your arguments make sense for you to believe them utterly, but _jeez_. Is there _no_ level of inherent contradiction that is so obvious that it gives you pause?
It’s really simple, if something exists, there is a reason for its existence.
See it’s not hard.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/116 "2009-08-07T22:27:15Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> It’s really simple, if something exists, there is a reason for its existence.
>
> See it’s not hard.
Well, it’s certainly not hard to _say_. That much I’ll give you.
Out of morbid curousity, are you asserting that everything has a _purpose_, or that everything has a _cause_? They’re not the same, and the word “reason” can mean either in this context.
Presuming you meant “purpose” - it really _is_ easy to say that if something exists it has a purpose, but it’s _quite_ hard to make the concept make sense. Because lots of different things exist - including things that were created randomly (like the shape of a particular peice of an accidentally dropped glass), and things that _once_ had a purpose, but don’t any more (like for example, an old gum wrapper).
Plus of course, it raises the question, if everything has a purpose, then _whose_ purpose are they serving? Because it’s not like everything in the universe appears to be working toward a common goal. And note - that whoever’s purpose it is, what was the purpose in _their_ creation? Who’s purpose was that? Be wary - this flirts with infinite turtles. (Like so many easy-to-say things do.)
---
### Author:  [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2009, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/117 "2009-08-08T00:30:08Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Well, it’s certainly not hard to _say_. That much I’ll give you.
>
> Out of morbid curousity, are you asserting that everything has a _purpose_, or that everything has a _cause_? They’re not the same, and the word “reason” can mean either in this context.
>
> Presuming you meant “purpose” - it really _is_ easy to say that if something exists it has a purpose, but it’s _quite_ hard to make the concept make sense. Because lots of different things exist - including things that were created randomly (like the shape of a particular peice of an accidentally dropped glass), and things that _once_ had a purpose, but don’t any more (like for example, an old gum wrapper).
>
> Plus of course, it raises the question, if everything has a purpose, then _whose_ purpose are they serving? Because it’s not like everything in the universe appears to be working toward a common goal. And note - that whoever’s purpose it is, what was the purpose in _their_ creation? Who’s purpose was that? Be wary - this flirts with infinite turtles. (Like so many easy-to-say things do.)
OK
If everything has a purpose, and it does, then something must know what that purpose is.
---
### Author:  [@ManiacMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ManiacMan)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2009, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/118 "2009-08-08T03:10:43Z")
We are alive because we all survived Roe vs Wade.
---
### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2009, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/119 "2009-08-08T10:25:27Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> A person who loathes themselves may feel that justice and good is served by punishing or hurting that which is loathsome. They are distressed (made more miserable) by the sense of the loathsome going unpunished. To alleviate that distress, to reduce their misery, to increase their (meagar) happiness, they self-harm with the goal of satisfying their inner need to attack that which they loathe and thereby hope to reduce their misery/improve their happiness.
[Quote=begbert2, on the neurology of emotions]
Prove that the electrical signals transmitted between our neurons have nothing to do with our emotions. At any level. Because that’s what you’re saying by attributing it all to the neurochemicals.
[/quote]
I think we’re done here. Your increasingly long posts are more and more accusations of foul play on my part, even as you dodge and shift your position with every post.
Case in point:
-
**Mijin:** “I _don’t_ already know the answer to this question”
**begbert2:** “You are stating that you understand my position - that is, that you know that, by my argument, Premise -\> Answer, and you know the path it uses to get there.
…despite you already knowing the answer…”
\*
If I were having a discussion with a Flat Earther, and I asked him “How do you explain the photos of a (roughly) spherical earth”, how retarded a response would “You know my position, therefore you know my answer to the question” be?
Again, I _ **don’t** _ know the answer to the question. I want to know the answer.
> [@](#):
>
> GODDAMMIT MAN, how many times to I have to remind you I started out with the happiness/misery continuum, not the hedonistic pleasure/pain continuum. Do you get some illicit thrill out of misrepresenting my position, or are you really incapabable of internalizing that I’m not and never have been making the simplistic hedonistic argument?
Yeah. Our actions being motivated by “happiness / reducing misery” (or, as you’ve also put it, good feeling / reducing bad feeling) is obviously totally different to the philosophy that our actions are motivated by pleasure / reducing pain. :rolleyes:
I have tried to get you to clarify your position many times in this thread. I have done this because I have had debates with people with similar views before and it is inevitable that they eventually claim their view is simply “we do whatever we think is best”, which is something I think everyone would trivially agree with.
That was _not_ your original position. You made it quite clear you were talking about a person being motivated by optimising their own happiness state, always.
For example you said:
> [@](#):
>
> …the thing that comparisons always boil down to is current good feelings or bad feelings. That is, will I feel bad/guilty/stupid/evil, right now, if I do that? Or will I feel pleased/releived/smart/good, right now, if I do that?
And let’s not forget your quote about the self-harmers, which I start all my posts with.
Your theory is about being motivated by our own mental state, this is very much the position of Hedonism.
btw, I like how you brushed away another cite. If you’d read it, you’d have seen that some of your arguments are explicitly mentioned. As are several of my counter-arguments.
* * *
**To any Philosophical Egoists reading this thread**
Well, with all the firefighting I had to do with **begbert2** , the central points got lost.
Egoism is a philosophy that is unpopular among philosophers but can “win” in debates with the man on the street. There’s the episode of _Friends_ for example, where Pheobe fails to find an example of a selfless act.
There are two important things to realise:
1. The _benefits_ of an action are not the same thing as the _reason(s)_ for doing it. You can think of a benefit to just about any course of action, if you think hard enough. That doesn’t necessarily mean that that was the reason for doing it.
Your reason for doing something can be whatever conscious reasoning you had at the time, nothing more nothing less.
2. Getting our own way tends to make us happy. But that is _never_ the reason for doing something.
If you were losing a war, you wouldn’t think “OK, I’m going to make _losing_ be my objective so I can experience the happiness of getting my way!”.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-alive/504200/120 "2009-08-10T17:13:08Z")
> [@lekatt](#):
>
> OK
>
> If everything has a purpose, and it does, then something must know what that purpose is.
You may have heard of something called a proof by contradiction. This is when you take a position, and show that it leads to an impossible condition (possibly an absurdly impossible condition). If this has been shown, then the position itself has been shown not to be true. It’s worth noting that this type of argument is tailor made for conditional statements.
So. “If everything has a purpose, then something must know what that purpose is.” Well, if something must know what that purpose is, then that something must exist. Which means that it too has a purpose. Which means that something _else_ must exist, to know what it’s purpose is. And by your assumption, that thing too must have a purpose. Which by your assumption means that yet _another_ thing must exist, to know _it’s_ purpose. And that implies still yet another thing that must exist…
This is the watchmaker argument, except with “knows its purpose” rather than “creates it”, and has the same flaw. Infinite regress is not any argument’s friend.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> I think we’re done here.
I think we’re done here too. The signal/noise ratio I’m seeing here is nearly zero.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> btw, I like how you brushed away another cite. If you’d read it, you’d have seen that some of your arguments are explicitly mentioned. As are several of my counter-arguments.
Which cite? The wiki? I addressed that. As I mentioned it addresses the simplistic Philosophical Egoist position, and not the argument that I have been making (which you have done nothing at all to refute) that at the cognitive level of actual decision-making there is necessarily a normalized comparative metric.
You may now resume strawmanning me with the much-easier-to-refute argument you wish I was making. :rolleyes:
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> There are two important things to realise:
>
> 1. The _benefits_ of an action are not the same thing as the _reason(s)_ for doing it. You can think of a benefit to just about any course of action, if you think hard enough. That doesn’t necessarily mean that that was the reason for doing it.
> Your reason for doing something can be whatever conscious reasoning you had at the time, nothing more nothing less.
It is obviously the case that a person can after-the-fact make up speculated reasons for actions that have nothing to do with the actual motivation for the action. However, it is fraudulent to claim that just because incorrect speculation happens that the actual reasons the person had for doing the action were not perceived as being beneficial in some way. The real reasons and any arbitrarily speculated reasons are rather obviously two completely different goalposts.
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> 1. Getting our own way tends to make us happy. But that is _never_ the reason for doing something.
> If you were losing a war, you wouldn’t think “OK, I’m going to make _losing_ be my objective so I can experience the happiness of getting my way!”.
And who proposed this occured in exactly this manner? Oh, right, nobody. Strawman.
And AGAIN you fail to dig deeply enough into the underlying motives. Why do we like getting our own way? Well, usually it’s because getting our way is beneficial to us - we like the outcome better, which is why we were arguing for it in the first place. Which is why people don’t tend to toggle “ways” at the drop of the hat; they had a _reason_ for wanting their way in the first place. And it’s quite daft to imply that that’s not usually the case.
That said, people _do_ occasionally feign ‘sour grapes’, and _pretend_ to toggle positions. But that’s just a sham put on to save face, not a real change in their position.
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