Winning at life

I’ve been thinking about my previous post on negative emotions and the analogy of bad weather. I stated that I like chilly, rainy weather more than most people I know. And I wondered why people insist on calling such weather “bad.”

Upon further reflection, I think it is simply a matter of degree. As an example, let’s just look at temperature and ignore all other variables. As the temperature gets lower, the number of people who call that temperature “bad” will increase, until virtually everyone will call it “bad,” perhaps around 20 degrees and lower. I mean, no one (except a suicidal person who wants to freeze to death) will step outside in 0-degree temperatures and say, “This weather is fantastic!”

Obviously, this is because as the weather gets more extreme, it becomes more and more likely to kill us humans. It’s just a matter of biology that we want to stay alive, except for those of us who don’t (the aforementioned suicidal folks; cheer up, guys).

Now, getting back to the 50-degree, rainy days that I find so enjoyable at times. I think I am simply above the mean (top 10%, eh?) in my tolerance for discomfort. But as the temperature gets lower or the rain turns to pounding hail, I, too, fall in line with my fellow humans in agreeing that the weather is “bad.” I know; lame.

So, my cold-weather example shows that our value judgments about bad weather are based upon a natural aversion to pain and, ultimately, death. I bet most of our values arise from similar biological imperatives.

Perhaps if you just stop being so anthropocentric and fearing pain and death, you realize that 0 degrees is just a number. It is what it is. At last, all value judgments can be relinquished as you accept the utter finitude and inadequacy of the human perspective! But then, you freeze to death. Not awesome for you, in most cases.

Oh shit, you guys! I think evolution selects AGAINST nihilism!

But wait! Cheerful nihilism, on the other hand, is all about promoting survival and reproduction. It can embrace absurdity and meaninglessness while still having a good time. It is the perspective that totally wins at life.

Time to go eat a tasty and nutritious dinner while remaining safe in my 75-degree room. Survival status: excellent. Reproduction status: try again later.

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November 21, 2009 at 5:41 am

Sean Utt

It is not so much that Nihilism is selected against as it is that primitive people don’t have the surplus collective time to spend developing culture and language complicated enough to consider Nihilism. For instance, to have advanced mathematics requires advanced language. Primitive languages only have concepts for none, 1, 2, 3 and many. Many people even today lack the linguistic capacity to conceive and discuss abstract concepts. Nihilism is a luxury that primitive people don’t have. It’s a concept that is missing from their repertoire. That doesn’t mean they are “less intelligent” than “modern people” – it means their “Operating System” (Culture and Language) is less sophisticated than ours. And that is just luck. (See “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond)

The “natural environment” for Humans is an artificial one altered by our presence. We change the world and the world changes us, like one of those cranes down by the tram on the riverfront that jacks itself up into the sky to do its job. Today we are in a unique place and time where our technological achievements have pushed ahead of us like a bow wave before a ship. Technology is altering our environment at an extreme pace. We have not yet adapted to the environment we have created for ourselves. That will happen though, and quicker than we might think because culture evolves faster than flesh, and culture is the software that societies run on.

We are part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s just not as grandiose as most religions like to paint it. Most people do what “Society” tells them to. I do not mean this in an obvious way like “Buy Tide and get cleaner clothes.” The meta-thoughts of the Social Organism are bigger and slower than the thoughts of any one of the people who make up Society. We can’t know what part we play in the meta-creature we are part of. Societies have life spans of thousands of years. Customs and Mores outlive the people who espouse them by centuries.

Meaning only exists in our minds. (And maybe in the Meta-Mind of Society, but we can’t know that) The Universe lacks Intrinsic Meaning. This is the problem Camus described as “The Absurd.” Our minds are driven by meaning and the Universe we exist in is completely lacking in meaning. Meaning is a shortcut. A good trick. Like emotions and intuition, stereotypes and superstition. It has been good enough to get us by.

Like optical illusions, which are good tricks in the wild and odd anomalies in the city, we have many other cognitive illusions that were good tricks in the wild that are harder to be aware of. Conserving energy by staying in out of the rain and cold was a “good trick.” More of our lives are constrained by these “good tricks” than we know. One side effect of those cognitive deficits is that it is difficult for us to realize that we have cognitive deficits. Like the blind spot in our vision. We don’t “fill it in,” we simply pretend that it is not not there. And there is nothing we can do get around that. No amount of awareness will stop it from happening. One of the good tricks is Society. Ants have it. Apes have it. Etc. Humans get to take it up a notch, to where we get to contribute something other than just genetic material to the future of Humanity. We also get to contribute ideas and concepts.

We are more than the meat we are made of, but only Humans can care about that. The Universe could give a crap.

November 21, 2009 at 6:02 am

cheerfulnihilist