Comment by card_zero

9 hours ago

Obviously you'd want to name "joy" as a separate thing, to propose it as the thing we're motivated to do, but the problem is that you didn't describe it. So now I'm at: the thing we're motivated to do is the thing we're motivated to do, and it's not whatever I say it is, but apart from that you haven't told me anything about it. Of course I'm open to some pluralism, like it can be a string bag of mixed motivations, but I do think the motivations in our culture all agree with creating knowledge, and become vacuous without that element. What is "gain", "pleasure", etc., without meaning? (I don't know what you mean by meaning. I mean the process of explaining and learning and creating ideas.) Without it those are mechanical processes of the "number go up" type. Yes, I am skeptical that anything of that kind is anybody's deep motivation, though it may be a superficial one.

Why are you trying to avoid morality? That seems like a good way to never find out anything important, since importance is a moral judgement.

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card_zero

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9dev  7 hours ago

> the thing we're motivated to do is the thing we're motivated to do, and it's not whatever I say it is, but apart from that you haven't told me anything about it.

That’s just what I mean: I oppose your notion of a universally shared motivation of deriving meaning from creating knowledge. I don’t have an alternative to offer, because I believe no such objective motivation exists. Instead, it occurs to me you project your own belief system onto humanity (or at least your society) as a whole.

Yes, our world might be shaped most dramatically by those with a desire to create knowledge, but that still doesn’t support the generalisation that humans universally consider the creation of knowledge as a way to give their life meaning.

> Why are you trying to avoid morality?

I try to avoid bringing it into the question of what is and what isn’t a valid motivation for a continued existence, because that is one of the most fundamentally subjective aspects of being a sentient creature. Who am I to make a judgement?