My opinion on Life

Johnler

So, life is full of emotions. We live for emotions. Think about it. We work to get money to satisfy our needs because we want to feel as many good emotions as possible. We do everything in order to feel good. And if you disagree with that, i want you to tell me what we do that doesn't have to do with emotions. Now that we got that in mind. let's think about how we spend our lives. NOONE in this world (and please don't think about movies or rumours) has spent his life having negative emotions 100%. Life is balanced like that, so if you are sad the whole time, you get used to sadness. So even a tiny little thing that for us might be ordinary and wouldn't cause any feelings, could make a person who is used to sadness EXTREMELY happy. So you could say everyone lives balanced lives. If you are religious (like me) you could say that god made it all balanced, if you do not believe in god, you could say Nature did so. Through the years of evolution. So noone feels a totally shit life and noone lives a totally amazing life. Cause if someone is used to luxury, it will be just an ordinary everyday thing for him. These kids in Africa, that most of you might bring up in the comments, are used to sadness. So if they find a tiny bit of water or something valuable for them, they will feel like other people feel when they find a 500 dollar bill on the ground. As for the kids that die young, there's always a reason for them dying young. If they lived, they would have gotten in even worse torture.

If you believe that somehow after something really good/bad then something really bad/good will follow. Then you can easily predict what will happen next.
An example is this post: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7721985/Frano-Selak-worlds-luckiest-man-gives-away-his-lottery-fortune.html . This guy, after facing multiple accidents (which can be considered unfortunate/bad events) won the Lottery (which is the good event here). Many people also do these predictions but prefer to use the word "Karma" to describe them. Also everything happens for a reason. If you ever break up with your BF/GF and are really really sad then think that you broke up for a reason. To prevent your life being too good or too bad at some point (for example finding a BF/GF who is much better than the last one). That's what i always think when something unfortunate happens. I always am interested to think why did it happen? There must be a reason behind it. And a few hours/days/months/years later after it happened, i always say thank god it happened because i understood the reasoning behind it and that's what kept me believing in god. That's just something i do. Could be totally wrong. But i want you guys to test it aswell. Think of all the bad things that happened to you and try to get positives from them. I have actually predicted A LOT of events with these tricks. Could be pure luck. But i don't think that luck even exists.

^^ The second paragraph is purely my opinion, my experience. It refers to possibly the god putting his hand so if you guys are atheists, then ignore it or you could say it's bullshit. I understand. I may be 100% wrong and i know that. I am just a teen with a messed up mind looking to get feedback about how he is thinking. That's why i decided to make an account here and post my opinion.

Thank you for reading.

A Christian Philosophy

We live for emotions. — Johnler

Hello. While pleasure is indeed an end and not a means to any other ends, there exist other ends as well, like ethics or duty. A parent may feel no pleasure in punishing a child, but do it because it is the right thing to do.

Also everything happens for a reason. — Johnler

It sure does, but the reason may not be a good one. Be careful about this 'Karma' ideology. It can lead to absurd conclusions, like deciding not to help anyone in need, on the grounds that they only got what they deserved, and that helping them out would disrupt destiny.

Noble Dust

↪Johnler

I think your first paragraph is spot on; it's a very intuitive insight. It sounds to me like you're saying "experience is subjective; the experience of poverty is different than the outside view of poverty; the experience of wealth is different than the outside view of wealth; the experience of physical or emotional pain is different than the outside view of pain". That's a valuable idea.

It sounds to me like your second paragraph is your interpretation of what you lay out in the first paragraph. I don't think I fully agree with your interpretation there; I don't think that because experience is subjective, therefore Karma, or some other force, guides how experience happens for individuals. If that's not what you mean, then correct me on that.

Noble Dust

Hello. While pleasure is indeed an end and not a means to any other ends, there exist other ends as well, like ethics or duty. A parent may feel no pleasure in punishing a child, but do it because it is the right thing to do. — Samuel Lacrampe

You seem to be equating emotion with pleasure here. If we "live for emotions" like the OP is saying, then things like duty and ethics would subsumed within emotion, since emotion is not the same thing as pleasure. Emotion is the driving force of why ethics and duty, for instance, are ends in themselves. Ethics can't be an end in itself without an emotional source; how would ethics obtain without emotion? On what do you base a philosophy of ethics or duty?

Johnler

↪Samuel Lacrampe

1) They all do these ethics or duty for emotions still. The example you mentioned, when a parent punishes his child he does that so he doesn't FEEL bad or guilt that he didn't grow his kid up correctly. He does that to prevent an even worse feeling in the future.

2) I know about that. Thought about that. But you can't escape from Fate. Whatever you choose, what must happen will happen. People should choose whatever they want to choose and this whole thing i mentioned shouldn't affect their choices.

Johnler

↪Noble Dust

The first paragraph is what i have been thinking for years. The second one, i was not sure about posting it. Because it's an idea i had that i came up with recently. Based on my experience and what happened. Some other people told me aswell. That when something really bad happens to them, then next day/week/month/year(s) something really good happens as a comeback. After listening to them, i decided to post this paragraph here aswell.

Also my apologies if my English is not the best. I am just a 15 year old from Greece.

Nils Loc

Everything happens for a reason.

Everything that happens, happens.

Life has gone through a process to adapt to most stuff that happens in service of generational continuity, thus our calibrated emotional response to better or worse conditions.

One might say that all the deaths (extinctions) that happened in the course of our evolution, happened for a reason.

Just like:

Peacock tails happened for a reason.

Osso Bucco happened for a reason.

Ebola happened for a reason.

Whose or which reason did they happen for?

Please don't say God.

Which reason did he(it) happen for?

Johnler

↪Nils Loc

We can't know. Because we are humans. We can't know everything. I am just proposing the idea that there's a reason behind everything. I can't know everything that happened, but i am pretty sure that if i knew everything, i could answer every single one of your questions. It's like asking me what's the reason ing behind the creation of the universe.

If you knew/would ask me personal questions about events that happened in my life, i could answer them to you easily and why they happened.

A Christian Philosophy

emotion is not the same thing as pleasure — Noble Dust

I guess I did assume that 'pleasure' meant the same as 'emotions'. But is it not? Emotions are either emotional pleasures (joy, excitement, relief...) or pains (anger, sadness, stress...). What else is there?

Emotion is the driving force of why ethics and duty, for instance, are ends in themselves. Ethics can't be an end in itself without an emotional source — Noble Dust

This cannot be the case. Or else, logically, Hitler could be have been a very ethical person if he performed the Holocaust out of emotional bursts towards the Jews.

Emotion is the driving force of why ethics and duty [...] how would ethics obtain without emotion? On what do you base a philosophy of ethics or duty? — Noble Dust

Ethics is based on innate knowledge of justice; just like logic is innate to everyone. One cannot imagine justice to be bad and injustice to be good. You have it backwards: we get a feeling of right and wrong because we have a knowledge of ethics, not the other way around.

A Christian Philosophy

↪Johnler

1) You are correct that if you are ethical, then you will (or should) feel proud, and if you are unethical, then you will feel guilty. That said, what causes the feeling of pride/guilt? The feeling is an effect of the ethical act; such that if you don't perceive the act to be ethical, then you will not feel proud. Consequently, ethics is the end, and the feeling is only an effect of that end, not the end itself.

(A) But you can't escape from Fate. Whatever you choose, what must happen will happen. (B) People should choose whatever they want to choose and this whole thing i mentioned shouldn't affect their choices. — Johnler

Aren't A and B contradicting statements? How can choices exist if fate exists? For disclosure, my opinion is that choices (free will) exist, and fate does not.

Noble Dust

What else is there? — Samuel Lacrampe

There are ambivalent emotions that blend between the two.

This cannot be the case. Or else, logically, Hitler could be have been a very ethical person if he performed the Holocaust out of emotional bursts towards the Jews. — Samuel Lacrampe

I don't mean that emotions ethically permit whatever act someone does. Hitler had an ethic; Churchill had an ethic. Either of those ethics is predicated upon assumptions about the nature of humanity. Those assumptions have a strong emotional component; maybe that component isn't exactly the basis, but the emotional element is key to the ethic. The emotion gives content to the ethic. I'm not sure how else to say it; it seems self-evident to me. Note that this conception of emotion with regards to ethics posits emotion as a neutral force, hence why I wanted to highlight that emotion isn't pleasure. Like you described, we need to distinguish between the different types of emotions which have positive, vague, or negative impulses and effects.

Ethics is based on innate knowledge of justice; — Samuel Lacrampe

What is innate knowledge? That idea isn't enough for me, unless you can give a compelling case otherwise.

You have it backwards: we get a feeling of right and wrong because we have a knowledge of ethics, not the other way around. — Samuel Lacrampe

So where does that knowledge of ethics come from? How can you be sure "we" have that innate knowledge? It seems obvious that not everyone has that.

Brian

So, life is full of emotions. We live for emotions. Think about it. We work to get money to satisfy our needs because we want to feel as many good emotions as possible. We do everything in order to feel good. And if you disagree with that, i want you to tell me what we do that doesn't have to do with emotions. — Johnler

I think this is true in essence. In some way or another, the point of our whole lives is to be happy, as Aristotle rightly said. Happiness, of course, is an emotion, but it is also more than an emotion. It's a state of being. It's a basic attitude you have about life - your life and life in general. I would say that happiness as a state of being is permeated by the emotion of happiness. After all, if you never felt the emotion, how could you be living it as a state of being? So, I like what you said here. : )

Deleted User

Sorrow expands our ability to understand happiness. Sorrow drives us deeper, allowing our roots of character to strengthen. If one always lived in the light, then one would not fully appreciate the light. If one always lived in darkness, then the light maintains its wonder. So yes, for every emotion there is a reason behind it.

A Christian Philosophy

Those assumptions have a strong emotional component; maybe that component isn't exactly the basis, but the emotional element is key to the ethic. The emotion gives content to the ethic. — Noble Dust

Maybe your definition of 'emotion' is really the definition of 'feeling'. Emotional feelings are only one type of feelings. Other types are physical, 'gut' feelings (like guessing an answer on a test), and moral feelings, also called conscience. I think you are referring to this last one, which is different from emotional feelings.

What is innate knowledge? That idea isn't enough for me, unless you can give a compelling case otherwise. — Noble Dust

A typical example of innate knowledge is that of logic. Laws of logic are not discovered by scientific experiments, because science presupposes logic. Logic is a first principle, the starting point used to infer everything else. I think most people agree that logic is innate, though not everyone agrees it is the case for ethics. Yet, nobody can disagree that ethical things like justice, respect and honesty are good, and others like injustice, disrespect and dishonesty are bad. The Golden Rule of ethics is called that because it is found in nearly every religion and ethical tradition, suggesting it is part of human nature.

How can you be sure "we" have that innate knowledge? It seems obvious that not everyone has that. — Noble Dust

I have a reductio ad absurdum argument for it: If we supposed that not everyone had that same innate knowledge of ethics, then we could never have a moral judgement of anyone, because a person's act, no matter how immoral it may seem, could be an honest mistake if the person did not know it was wrong. As such, it would be possible that Hitler's act of the Holocaust was an honest mistake, on the grounds that he did not know it was wrong, and what's more, thought it was his duty. And that is absurd.

Noble Dust

Logic is a first principle, the starting point used to infer everything else. I think most people agree that logic is innate, though not everyone agrees it is the case for ethics. — Samuel Lacrampe

Nah I disagree; ethics has to be the first innate thing; otherwise logic just describes a means that has no ends. It's actually extremely simple and not very philosophical at all. The average person understands this better than the average poster on this forum.

A Christian Philosophy

↪Noble Dust

I think both are innate and different starting points. Logic is the starting point for truth. Ethics is that starting point for good. They meet when the true good is found.

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