It is better to have never been

Thank you, Envisage. “That’s what people do. They breed, and then their children breed, and then their children do it, and their children do it. But, have you ever asked why we do it?” ~ Jim ‘Metamorphhh’ Crawford Well, have you? Have you ever critically evaluated your existence? Not with the initial purpose of ‘how can I live the best life I can’, but rather with ‘should I be bothering with life?’ P1: The context – A brief history Firstly, I want you to relieve yourself of all you know, your prejudices, your feelings towards life and your opinion on god’s existence. Perhaps even your resentment of me. Everything. Now, we are going to put back on what seems likely. The Big Bang “The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the early development of the universe” [6]. The theory suggest that there was a beginning to the universe. There is nothing serious to suggest that it had to be a god, or gods, or some kind of miracle. All we know, according to what I have provided, is that there was a beginning to the universe, as indicated by its continual expansion (this is put in simple terms, of course). 13 Billion year old universe There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the universe is ~13 billion years old. The Lambda-CDM concordance model estimates that the age of the universe to be 13.798±0.037 billion years [1] [2]. What does this mean towards our existence? Well, it purely gives us an origin. There isn’t anything to seriously suggest that we have purpose. There isn’t anything to suggest that there is an entity looking out for us. The fact is that the universe is that old. Evolution and reproduction Evolution is a widely accredited scientific theory, almost to the point where it is an irrefutable fact. There are a couple facets of evolution that I wish to address. Approximately 3.8 billion years ago, single celled eukaryotic species began to reproduce. From these organisms, all sexually reproducing organisms have their evolutionary roots in these organisms [3] [4]. All these organisms were doing was growing large enough so they could split. That’s it. This is the basis for all sexual reproduction – it’s just growing large enough to divide. Yes, there are a lot more emotions involved with humans, but this is the core function in which everything else, involving sex, extends from. The organisms that were continuing their genes were the ones that felt the urge to reproduce. That is it. Human reproduction has no greater basic function, it is only more complex. Evolution and the nervous system Around 2 billion years ago, life began to develop a nervous system [5]. Why? Because the nervous system helped animals survive. For example, animals became better at performing tasks, due to the feedback from their limbs [6]. Again, this is the function of the nervous system: it helps us to survive. That is it. It is not there for pleasure, it is purely there because animals that developed it were more likely to survive. P2: Discomfort is bad When I refer to discomfort, I mean deprivation, which are wantings or desires. For example, I may want to attend a certain rock concert, but I currently don’t have tickets. Wanting to attend is a deprivation itself, and if the feeling persists in not having the means to do so, then the entity begins to suffer (intense deprivation). When I refer to comfort, I mean relieving myself of discomfort. It is absolutely vital to understand that comfort cannot come without discomfort; you cannot scratch and feel good if you did not have an itch to begin with. Without any context, if any sentient entity were to be given the option of discomfort (having lingering deprivations), or comfort (no deprivations), every entity would choose comfort. A1: Unintelligent Design Simply put, humans comprise of molecular chemistry. According to evolution, this molecular chemistry performs purely based on what is more likely to help survival, so that genes can be passed on. Obviously, reproducing is required to pass down genes, and the nervous system is there purely to help us survive. Now, in an objective sense, what neither of those things exist for is pleasure. Evolution takes no regard for generating pleasure; its sole ‘concern’ is continuing the cycle of life. Again, there is no regard for the welfare state of any sentient creature, and since it is a fact that no sentient creature would choose suffering over not suffering, this quickly becomes a problem. This ‘Unintelligent Design’ of human life can be summarised into four parts: 1. Consumption 2. Reproduction 3. Cannibalism 4. Addiction They are all intertwined and represent human psychology beautifully, as I will show you. Consumption refers to ‘acquiring the part’. Now whilst I partly mean we literally consume things, I also mean this in a metaphorical sense, too. We have things that I will refer to as ‘deprivations’, which are wantings or desires. For example, feeling an itch would be a deprivation, and you ‘consume’ when you make the effort to scratch it. You have to have the energy to move your arm, as well as the time to do it. Clearly, there is little consumption here, but the principle should be plainly obvious. The fact is that desire is your unwillingness to stay in your current state, which implies that you are being deprived of something. The fact is that the discomfort must come before the comfort. This is all human life, and really any life, is doing, in regards to feeling motivated to exist. In other words, your sole function in life is to perpetually feel the need to consume, to chase things to consume. “It’s like building a broken building, repairing it and then saying that now I have value in doing so…but it didn’t need to be broken in the first place.” ~ Gary ‘Inmendham’ Mosher What does this mean in terms of human existence? It means that if you are existing, you will feel the need to consume. Since consuming requires acquiring the part, the part must come from another. This could be a sentient entity. Are you starting to see the problem? Cannibalism. “A quick test of the assertion that enjoyment outweighs pain in this world, or that they are at any rate balanced, would be to compare the feelings of an animal engaged in eating another with those of the animal being eaten.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer You are not actually creating anything in consuming, you are merely ‘stealing the parts from elsewhere’ (I do not mean literal cannibalism, necessarily). The water you are drinking? Someone had to build the infrastructure to provide it cleanly, and now someone has to run and maintain the infrastructure. The air you are breathing? Foliage goes through photosynthesis for that. The meat you are eating? An animal has been murdered and might have even suffered for that. You are just taking parts from elsewhere. Giving birth simply creates a machine that has to take parts from elsewhere, in order to consume and never be satisfied. Reproduction is also a type of consumption, yet it also produces a very different problem. I ask you, as a reader: why do we need to exist? Our origins indicate that we serve no objective purpose, that we are simply the product of Unintelligent Design. Yet we still continue to reproduce, despite not having a coherent reason to do so. If you say that reproduction gives another entity a chance to enjoy life, then you need to affirm that life will be enjoyed, or else you are reckless and playing with the welfare state of another. But if we are honest, most people reproduce to bring a miniature version of their self into the world. These people are selfish, and only care for satisfying their own deprivations (hence reproduction being another type of consumption). The addiction is best demonstrated via the heroin addict example: When you see a heroin addict shooting-up, what exactly do you see? Do you see someone ‘enjoying life’? I put to you that this is all humans are: just biology on an adventure to find different ways to please itself. The heroin addict is out of his/her mind, possessed by the pursuit of the drug. The heroin addict’s purpose has no dignity and no real purpose. Sure, in those moments after shooting-up, life is incredible/wonderful/sensational etc. Outside of those moments, it can range from a lacking to severe craving, and neither of those are desirable. Similarly, humans are possessed by a defunct psychology, which desires for this ‘heroin,’ and only temporary satisfaction can be met in the event of embracing the ‘drug’ – we are all chasing chemical releases, nothing of real value. Imagine this heroin addict beating someone over the head for a hit of heroin. Completely despicable, right? What about a sporting match, where forcing someone to lose makes you feel good? Even though it is consensual, do you see the ridiculous of it? It would be like two heroin addicts trying to hurt each other, for the sole purpose of the heroin release. Initial Conclusion So which is preferable? Being subject to a seemingly objectively purposeless psychology? One of which naturally produces negative affect, and which sets the means of nullifying this negative affect by having to consume things. OR, would you rather not be subject to such things? References [1] Planck Collaboration (2013). "Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of products and scientific results". arXiv:1303.5062 [astro-ph.CO]. [2] Bennett, C.L.; et al. (2013). "Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Final Maps and Results". arXiv:1212.5225 [astro-ph.CO]. [3] Letunic, I; Bork, P (2006). "Interactive Tree of Life". Retrieved 23 July 2011. [4] Letunic, I; Bork, P (2011). "Interactive Tree of Life v2: Online annotation and display of phylogenetic trees made easy". Nucleic Acids Research 39 [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://curiosity.discovery.com... [7] Wollack, E. J. (10 December 2010). "Cosmology: The Study of the Universe". Universe 101: Big Bang Theory.NASA.