Questions

[intellectualpersuit]

First off, I am creating this thread to post questions I have that the members on this forum can respond to because I am curious about the feed back that you all will provide on the subjects that pop into my mind that I am curious about.

First question:
I think that on average humans enjoy life slightly more than they don't enjoy life, this is why they don't commit suicide. True or false?

[cmonkey]

False. Most humans don't commit suicide because they have a strong survival instinct baked into their brains. The few humans who do commit suicide do so because the fear of their own future suffering has grown stronger than the fear of death.

[intellectualpersuit]

Ooh good response, somebody has thought about this and has come to the primary factor, survival instinct. Very good, this is plausible.

[C40]

If you rate enjoyment and non-enjoyment on a scale - say from negative 10 to positive 10, with zero being neutral, you wouldn't just up and kill yourself as soon as you're at negative 1. If thinking logically, you'd not even consider it until you've been at a far negative number (say, negative 7) for a significant amount of time, and you are quite certain that you will stay at that level or get worse in the future.

[intellectualpersuit]

Next question: what does it take to feel good?

Drugs create a temporary good feeling, but less so the rest of the time, when used the right amount in my experience.

A good lifestyle created a slightly good feeling almost all of the time when done correctly. This is probably the best way to feel good, but requires some suffering to achieve. I assume that the integral of a healthy lifestyle wrt time yields a greater value than the integral of drug use wrt time.

A good lifestyle would include healthy eating as well as regular exercise as well as other things that are harder to pin point/define.

Though I am interested in the best way to feel good over the longest time possible.

[daylen]

Next question: what does it take to feel good?

Denying that good and bad existence sometimes.

[intellectualpersuit]

What does it mean when a person has experienced a very low level such as -7 for a time then got back to a level such as +2 for a long while. Is the person better for having experienced the -7 level now that they are a 2 with potential for higher and lower levels? I tend to believe so because I seek a broad range of experience (openness).

[C40]

"feel good" is too broad. What type of good?

Excitement?
Purpose?
Tranquility?
Wonder?
Absence of physical pain?
Absence of emotional turmoil/pain/anxiety?
etc...

[intellectualpersuit]

@ Daylen

Sometimes. But in the long run is this true?

[intellectualpersuit]

@ C40

How about content and generally happy.

[daylen]

First question:
I think that on average humans enjoy life slightly more than they don't enjoy life, this is why they don't commit suicide. True or false?

Humans are not capable of evaluating the average of their own enjoyment. Suicide often just happens when humans get trapped in a particular thought pattern; lifestyle is never guaranteed to prevent this. A dose of humility can help break suicidal thought patterns.

[intellectualpersuit]

I see. What does it take to have an amount of humility all of the time that prevents this. Maybe it is due to something genetic coupled with experience? Like many things, or am I wrong?

[daylen]

But in the long run is this true?

Not sure, I typically do not pay much attention to how I feel. Probably helps to have measurable goals that can be achieved in small increments over a long period of time; this can establish a periodic "flow" that adds some consistency to life and wards off thoughts of low self-value.

[intellectualpersuit]

Also I think humans capable of evaluating the average of their own experience relative to other known experiences when reflecting. Though in strenuous moments and including almost all moments in a humans life, humans are incapable of reflecting.

[intellectualpersuit]

Okay, flow states are generally considered good, but in my experience of being in flow I am not reflecting.Which reflecting can be beneficial in altering the state of future flow states. I guess the problem may be to complex to assign some model to for all ideal* situations, unless somebody has the "spoons" to think about it and translate it for me.

* Ideal meaning with the proper assumptions to make the model applicable.

[daylen]

All behavior is the result of genetics and experience, so this is not adding any information. Having humility is made easier by understanding how others live. Studying the humanities or reading fiction changes how you view your own self-importance and control. A feeling of not being in control triggers surrender of the biased self to "something else".

This is just an illusion.. there is no something else. The objective reality is a mirror image of the subjective reality. Though, such a perspective can be useful for "maturity".. whatever that is exactly. There are things like "consciousness", "suffering", and "maturity" that have no universal definition, but people tend to assume they exist when communicating.

[daylen]

You are facing is an ancient problem that have troubled many humans throughout history. Life cannot be optimized. Another way of saying this is that no one way of seeing the world is both consistent and complete. Any framework used to choose different realities will either contradict itself or not account for all observations.

[daylen]

If you want to build your own way of modelling things, then I suggest you start by constructing two independent frameworks or modes of operation. For instance, one could be for evaluating the self (introspective) and the other could be for evaluating objective reality (scientific).

[intellectualpersuit]

So I'm supposed to believed I'm fucked? Everything that is true is just floating around me and I am a partial part of it and that's it. This makes me believe nothing matters in the binary pair or everything matters and nothing matters, of which I flip between believing which is correct, though most of the time believing everything matters.

I appreciate your advice but it only works sometimes. That sometimes is enough of the time though. Also I feel that I have the knowledge and ability to 'model' and understand everything scientific if pursued, so I am trying to figure out everything else that I can't.

[daylen]

..so I am trying to figure out everything else that I can't.

Try looking in the realms of analytical psychology and/or philosophy. No one said life was easy.