Why should we do anything?

[ttreg]

Hello.

Before I say anything else, I just want to say that if I sound naive, please forgive me as I'm still very much a novice of philosophy. Now to the point.

I often hear altruistic people say, "You should help others", but I often wander, "Why"? Why should we help others? Because we want them to help us back? That does not sound too altruistic to do something ultimately because you'll benefit, and why should we care what happens to us anyway? Why should we care if we die?

Is it simply just because we don't want to die that we do things that we believe that helps us? Why should we follow the urge of not dieing?

 

[samphillipssr]

We should help others for two reasons:

# 1 - It is Gods command to all christians plus " DO UNTO OTHERS WHAT YOU'D HAVE THEM TO DO UNTO YOU."

# 2 - What we sow we'll reap. That is one of the guaranteed facts of life. When we sow good, we'll reap back good. If we sow evil then be assured that evil will be what we reap back.

Helping others gives one such a great feeling, I don't understand why everyone doesn't hunt for someone to help. The happiness, joy, and smiles is worth it all.

No, it's not because we're selfish and thinking of self that we help others.

It is just plain fun and very satisfying, don't you think?

 

[ttreg]

Seeing that I'm not a Christian, that information is irrevelent, and I'd rather not derail the thread to a Christian vs NonChristian debate.
Thank you

 

[The Nihilist]

you know what's more fun than helping others? not helping them. deucing on their shoes is even better. Seriously, though, there's not a good reason

 

[Eudaimonist]

Before I say anything else, I just want to say that if I sound naive, please forgive me as I'm still very much a novice of philosophy.

Your questions aren't naive at all. They are excellent questions that everyone should ask.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[JGL53]

Life is a free lunch for you to do as you wish.

Argue with that.

 

[ttreg]

Can you prove that life is a free lunch for you to do as you wish?

 

[JGL53]

Can you prove that life is a free lunch for you to do as you wish?

Can you prove that it isn't?

 

[ttreg]

I don't know.



It seems that I've come to the conclusion of nihilism and "Nothing can be known, not even this."

 

[JGL53]

I don't know.



It seems that I've come to the conclusion of nihilism and "Nothing can be known, not even this."

You don't NEED to know.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. I read that somewhere and it makes perfect sense.

 

[ttreg]

Just because something "makes sense" to you or me doesnt mean it is true. How do you not know that life is actually not a reality to be experienced, but a problem to be solved?

 

[JGL53]

Just because something "makes sense" to you or me doesnt mean it is true...

Correct. So what? What's the penalty for being wrong? Do you KNOW? If not, then what's the concern?

...How do you not know that life is actually not a reality to be experienced, but a problem to be solved?

I don't KNOW it in some absolute concept of "KNOWING". I just intuit it and believe it is true beyond all reasonable doubt, as I define "reasonable doubt". That is good enough for me. But not for you? So what? The earth still spins on its axis and around the sun, just like it did yesterday and will tomorrow. It doesn't assign much importance to the strange loop mobus strip concerning "KNOWING stuff" that apparently spins 'round all day in your head. Ditto for the rest of reality.

 

[ranmaonehalf]

Hello.
I often hear altruistic people say, "You should help others", but I often wander, "Why"? Why should we help others? Because we want them to help us back? That does not sound too altruistic to do something ultimately because you'll benefit, and why should we care what happens to us anyway? Why should we care if we die?

Is it simply just because we don't want to die that we do things that we believe that helps us? Why should we follow the urge of not dieing?

Well its pretty much following the golden rule. It works if people reciprocate. Kind of like insurance. it works if there are enough people doing it. You might look at it like what if when your old, you expect your kids to help take care of you. ect. ect...

As for why care about what happens to you?

Well in general most of us dont like to feel pain or feel bad,in general bad stuff doesnt make usfeel good. We do extremely value feeling and in general try not to die so we can feel more.

 

[Axioma]

Basically, it boils down to helping someone because if the tables were reversed, you would want to be helped. It's not a case of "hey, that way this person will owe me a favor which I can cash in in the future when I need it" but "I will do what I would want someone else to do if I was in the position this person is in now."

 

[Eudaimonist]

Basically, it boils down to helping someone because if the tables were reversed, you would want to be helped.

But why do this? For what purpose? The tables are not reversed. And if they were, it wouldn't be you doing the helping.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Received]

It's easy to stretch reasoning completely beyond the skyline of flesh and blood.

We do things, ideally, to be happy. That's it. Lotsa folk have lost this simple ideal; they do things from tradition, to fit the herd, which is also incidentally a negative form of happiness seeking: they equate happiness with avoidance of the pain involved with being thrown out.

Doing something is a bit of a leap, because we can never know that what we've done will make us happier than if we abstain from doing it. But at the same time, there's nothing worse than the inertia of idleness: boredom or despair, depending on intensity. A life lived with this escape from boredom and a little continuity of escape plans (writing, reading, music, etc.), becomes meaning. This meaning is entirely subjective, and the values associated with this search are also entirely subjective (even if it could be argued that there are universally agreed values, moral or otherwise); they are both related to one's criteria for being happy, and it's going to be different for everyone. Interpreted this way, nihilism is actually extremely positive: there are no absolutes, but so what? What matters is you, your meaning, your values, and ultimately your satisfied happiness. You become who you are. No-one can do it for you.

As for helping others, selflessness also has its reward as happiness. There is a reward in negating one's ego to aid another human being. To do it with a reward in mind, though, diminishes the reward, therefore the paradox: you can only be rewarded in helping others by resigning one's hope for a reward.

 

[JGL53]

It's easy to stretch reasoning completely beyond the skyline of flesh and blood.

We do things, ideally, to be happy. That's it. Lotsa folk have lost this simple ideal; they do things from tradition, to fit the herd, which is also incidentally a negative form of happiness seeking: they equate happiness with avoidance of the pain involved with being thrown out.

Doing something is a bit of a leap, because we can never know that what we've done will make us happier than if we abstain from doing it. But at the same time, there's nothing worse than the inertia of idleness: boredom or despair, depending on intensity. A life lived with this escape from boredom and a little continuity of escape plans (writing, reading, music, etc.), becomes meaning. This meaning is entirely subjective, and the values associated with this search are also entirely subjective (even if it could be argued that there are universally agreed values, moral or otherwise); they are both related to one's criteria for being happy, and it's going to be different for everyone. Interpreted this way, nihilism is actually extremely positive: there are no absolutes, but so what? What matters is you, your meaning, your values, and ultimately your satisfied happiness. You become who you are. No-one can do it for you.

As for helping others, selflessness also has its reward as happiness. There is a reward in negating one's ego to aid another human being. To do it with a reward in mind, though, diminishes the reward, therefore the paradox: you can only be rewarded in helping others by resigning one's hope for a reward.

My (user) name is JGL53 and I endorse the above post.

 

[Received]

 

[Received]

And it's completely nonsensical to say that there's no reason to be happy. There might be no ascertainable reason as to what happiness is, the stuff its made of (perusing through the different ontologies). This assumes that there is a standard for absolute explanation: everything should have a reason. But there's no reason to say that everything should have a reason, thus the philosophy is self-negating. More: happiness is built in our structure as human beings; it pervades our language, our fundamental constructs (like "good"), and our intuition. To say that we have no reason to be happy is to misconstrue the place of reason: namely, that we reason in order to be happy, rather than that we are happy only if we can sufficiently reason. Reason is a member of the happiness set, and not the other way around.

It happened thus: theists attributed truth to God; truth is unconditionally valuable because reality is ultimately positive, given that a good God hides behind it, and reasoning was the means to uncovering these positive things -- a very artistic basis of reasoning. Atheism came along and justifiably denounced God for appearing to be such a long-term sorta guy, always interested in the afterlife and nothing in this life, but kept the unconditional value of truth, so much so that truth is valued by most atheistic humanisms as more important than happiness -- which is why there are so many ill constituted geniuses running around.

 

[JGL53]

...truth is valued by most atheistic humanisms as more important than happiness -- which is why there are so many ill constituted geniuses running around.

I have found that once truth is ascertained one simultaneously achieves supreme and life-long happiness.

Or maybe it is just me being a silly person.

In any event, nihilism reduces to nothing more than an unwarranted bad attitude based in ignorance. Luckily there is a cure for such.