Is good an actual quality like water that we need to drink?

[The Transcended Omniverse]

Psychologists often divide emotions into two categories: intrinsically positive and intrinsically negative (i.e. feeling good and feeling bad). I have every reason to think this division is true based upon my own personal experience. After all, positive and negative, good and bad, light and darkness is a well known concept in many movies, anime, artwork, etc. Feeling good and feeling bad is an actual quality of good and bad.

This means that good and bad are actual qualities like water, food, electricity, etc. That is, they are actual things rather than ideas or concepts. If you are someone who struggled with depression or negative emotions such as feelings of anger, disgust, or sadness where you had little to no positive emotions in your life, then you would be having little to no good value in your life just as how you would be having little to no water.

The thought and belief of having water in your life will not give you actual water just as how believing that your life is still good, joyful, beautiful, and worth living during your miserable moments or other negative emotional states would not bring your life any of those things either. Sadly, this means that all those famous and genius miserable artists and composers had little to no good value in their lives regardless of what they believed otherwise. Their lives and artistic endeavors were virtually meaningless and empty even though they were deluded otherwise.

So, with all of this being said, positive and negative emotions, also known as pleasant and unpleasant emotions, are intrinsically good and bad. Beliefs and mindsets themselves are not the same thing as emotions because, if you were in the most miserable state of your life and you believed that you were in a positive emotional state such as feeling joyful and excited about a certain idea such as going to the carnival, then you wouldn't be.

It would just be the thought of being excited and joyful, but no real excitement and joy. Our positive and negative emotions would be like our own inner light and inner darkness. It is the inner light we need to truly make our lives and artistic endeavors good and beautiful and it is the darkness we should avoid since that can only make our lives bad and shit. This means that the only way to live and be an artist is through positive emotions.

To conclude this packet, I will point out something interesting here. Emotions themselves are actual value judgments. Here is a response from a skeptic/neuroscientist which supports this:

Emotions are value judgments too. If they weren't, humanity would not be distinct from other mammals; we would be biological machines with no autonomy, acting purely on instinct. For example, if you are physically hurt, and the doctor treating you causes you pain during treatment, do you become angry and bite him? No, because you are able to override your instinctive anger and fear at someone causing you pain with your ability to reason that the treatment is necessary and the pain is temporary. But a dog can't reason, and will bite to stop the person causing the pain. Both the instinctive emotions AND the reasoned thoughts are value judgments.

Therefore, since our positive emotions are always emotional value judgments of good value and our negative emotions always being emotional value judgments of bad value, since emotions themselves are actual qualities (things that exist such as water, food, electricity, etc.), then positive emotions would have to be a quality of good and negative emotions would have to be a quality of bad.

This means that the only way to live the most beautiful, good, and worthwhile life would be if you were in the most profound, intense state of euphoria of your life and the only worst life you can live would be if you were in the most profoundly horrible negative emotional state of your life. Unfortunately, moments of euphoria are very brief and fleeting which means that your life can only be the greatest for you in brief, fleeting moments.

Other Person's Response: Could you give me an example of people who think that their positive emotions are the inner light to their lives as you claim?

My Reply: There are many people out there who struggle with depression. Many hate their lives and they just want to die. They say that having a positive mindset does nothing for them. This supports my worldview quite well because these depressed people are only expressing the truth here. They are merely expressing the need for the inner light back into their lives again. Many people out there don't realize this truth. Depressed people simply come to the aid of therapists, counselors, and mental health professionals who help change their thinking and work on certain therapeutic methods when, in reality, none of these things were the issue.

What really needs to be done for these depressed folks is to somehow find a way to restore their positive emotions. I realize that antidepressants are one method. But something more needs to be done here since our positive emotions are truly the only things we have to make our lives good and worth living for. I don't care if anything I say offends or upsets you. The truth is the truth and it needs to be shared. I, myself, have struggled 10 whole years with the worst misery of my life induced by emotional traumas and obsessive thinking and it is time I shared the truth of my personal experience to the world.

[Divine Insight]

Is there a question for debate here?

The concepts of good and bad are human subjective concepts. Obviously arguments can be made that destructive behavior is typically considered to be bad and constructive behavior is considered to be good. But often times it requires human judgement to decide what constitutes destructive or constructive behavior.

Having said this there are many things that the vast majority of humans will agree on in terms of what constitutes "good versus bad". But considering that we are all a commonly related social species that should come as no surprise. Also, even given this there are clearly things that humans often disagree on in terms of what constitutes good or bad.

So the concepts of good and bad are indeed human subjective judgements, that aren't even carved in stone relative to the entire species as a whole.

As far as things like depression are concerned. Usually when a person is depressed even they recognize that this is not a good state of mind to be in. Unfortunately they often can't seem to do much to get out of this state of mind. Sometimes it has physical causes, other times it may be related to their situation in life which may simply seem to them to be hopeless.

It's true that if you give a hopeless person hope that can change their mental attitude toward life causing them to become more uplifted and inspired to be more constructive in their behavior. However this in no way implies therefore good and bad exist in any absolute way. It still requires a human judgement call to even say that the person is behaving "better" even if that judgement call comes from the person who has judged themselves to be in a "better" mood or situation in life.

It all comes down to judgement calls on the part of us humans.

In fact, the proof is in the pudding. We humans care more about the health and safety of other humans (especially other humans that we consider to be close to us). But we may not care much at all for other living creatures, perhaps spiders and snakes for example.

That pretty much proves that humans have created their own sense of "good and bad" that is most definitely not any sort of absolute objective truth in nature.

So trying to argue for an absolute good or bad is actually quite futile. It's all relative to who is making the judgement call. If we leave it up to lions they may say that it's good to eat human babies for lunch.

So much for any absolute good or bad.

[The Transcended Omniverse]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

I still have to disagree with you. I think there is an absolute good and bad that is hidden from humanity and I am trying to uncover it. It would be no different than how I am digging for a hidden treasure that many people don't realize is there. I am like a metal detector and I am beeping loudly. I acknowledge the factors you have presented which is your own personal basis for a conviction of good and bad being subjective. But I still don't think any of these factors disprove my theory/worldview. Lastly, I think this absolute good and bad would be a scientific definition of good and bad. Would we even call it that or would it instead have a different description such as an emotional definition of good and bad? I am trying to discover this new good and bad that I think is real and other people and scientists can join me in this search for truth.

[Divine Insight]

I think there is an absolute good and bad that is hidden from humanity and I am trying to uncover it. It would be no different than how I am digging for a hidden treasure that many people don't realize is there.

Well I certainly wish you the best of lucking in trying to find it. I'm curious though about where you would dig for it? Where would you hope to find it?

The thing I always point to is that the universe itself is clearly not the place to dig since the universe produces animals that naturally prey on one another in extremely violent and bloody ways. I can't imagine viewing that as being "good". So digging around in the universe isn't likely to produce any examples or evidence for any absolute good or bad.

Lastly, I think this absolute good and bad would be a scientific definition of good and bad.

I think a scientific definition of good and bad would be quite hard to come by. Sam Harris has tried that approach. The problem is that even his approach is quite questionable. He tries to define "good" as things that lead to human happiness and well-being. But that instantly becomes subjective since people differ on what they personally consider to be required to make them "happy".

Would we even call it that or would it instead have a different description such as an emotional definition of good and bad?

Now you're getting into an extremely subjective area. Who's emotions would determine what's "good". What it gives someone an emotional thrill to torture babies? Do you then reject their subjective emotions and only accept emotions that you agree with? That would clearly end up being a subjective definition of good or bad.

I am trying to discover this new good and bad that I think is real and other people and scientists can join me in this search for truth.

As a scientist and philosopher I have already given this subject much consideration. So much so that I have already concluded that there is no place to 'dig' where there could even be a chance of discovering any absolute good or bad. As I point out, the universe at large already violates my notion of what "good" should be. Therefore I certainly can't turn to the universe, or anything within it for evidence of any absolute good or bad.

Is there a "God"? Perhaps so. However, if that God turns out to be "good" to my standards of what the term means, then this God could only be in harmony with my idea of what is "good". If the God fails to be in harmony with what I consider to be "good", then I could only say that the God in question is clearly "Not Good" by my standards.

By the way, if there's a God who created this universe, then this creator God would need to be responsible for animals eating each other. So if this God is said to be "good" then guess what? Animals brutally eating each other alive must then also be "good".

So if that represent absolute "good", then many things that I personally view as being bad are actually "good".

This would then necessarily include lions eating human babies for snacks. That would need to be absolutely "good" whether I subjectively agree with it or not.

So if there is such a thing as absolute good and bad, then it most likely doesn't match up with my own personal subjective feelings of what should constitute good or bad.

In other words, if there exists an absolute good and bad, then there is absolutely no way that I could even begin to guess what it might be. It certainly wouldn't match my current ideas about what these concepts should mean.

[The Transcended Omniverse]

I really suspect that the place to look for it would be our emotions themselves. My own personal experience was profound and powerful. So, I have discovered this good and bad from my own personal experience. Therefore, I have discovered it within which means that there was no need to go digging around and trying to discover it. It's within all of us and we have to discover it within ourselves as well. As for happiness, I have looked that word up. It is synonymous with pleasure. If you had no emotions whatsoever, then you cannot have pleasure. Negative emotions cannot be any pleasure either. Therefore, the only pleasure would have to be our positive emotions.

So, when Sam Harris says that things that lead to happiness are good, then he really means that positive emotions bring our lives good value. Since the focus is on happiness, then the focus would have to be our positive emotions. Likewise, when Sam Harris says that the worst possible state of misery would be the worst value for all of us, then he is referring to a negative emotional state. Lastly, as for your question in regards to a psychopath getting positive emotions from torturing others, since positive emotions are a quality of good, then they would still have to be good no matter what just as how water is still water no matter what.

[Divine Insight]

I really suspect that the place to look for it would be our emotions themselves. My own personal experience was profound and powerful. So, I have discovered this good and bad from my own personal experience.

So how does this amount to an absolute or objective definition of "good"?

Are you suggesting that your personal emotional feelings define what is absolutely good? Is so, then would this mean that anyone who disagrees with your personal feelings about what is "good" is then simply wrong?

This would seem to be to be nothing more than you holding your subjective emotional feelings up as the "standard" for "goodness".

But if you can do that, then shouldn't everyone be able to do that? Even those people who disagree with your emotional feelings of what constitutes "good"?

Lastly, as for your question in regards to a psychopath getting positive emotions from torturing others, since positive emotions are a quality of good, then they would still have to be good no matter what just as how water is still water no matter what.

I don't understand this at all. Are you saying that the emotional feelings of a psychopath would define what's "good" for the psychopath?

You seem to be saying that "goodness" is like water. Apparently it doesn't matter whether it's quenching someone's thirst, or drowning someone to death, it's still just water. So the analogy would then mean that goodness (defined as feeling good emotionally) is still goodness whether it's treating a baby with tender loving care, or torturing a baby to death. It's still "good" as long as the person who is doing it is emotionally enjoying their experience.

I think we're much further ahead by defining "good and bad" using intellectual descriptions and openly confessing that our intellectual definitions are entirely subjective, and when used in a society they are simply the consensus of the majority, which is precisely what we actually see in the various cultures of the world.

No need to "dig" for these answers since they are right out in plain view.

[The Transcended Omniverse]

[Replying to post 6 by Divine Insight]

As for what you just said, that would be my worldview. Positive emotions would be good no matter if you were a psychopath torturing others or someone innocent helping others. This means that, again, emotions are intrinsically good and bad. My worldview might sound absurd. But, then again, aren't absurd things in life often true? It would be the absurdity of life rule. Many things that are absurd and just don't work out for us are, in fact, true things. Many people die from fatal illnesses such as deadly viruses and these are just facts of life. Therefore, just because my worldview sounds absurd does not dismiss it as being false. Lastly, there are many people who believe false ideas all the time such as people who believed in the existence of Thor the God of Thunder. Therefore, the same idea would also apply to good and bad. Many people are living by a false version of good and bad that they believe is true when it never was.

[Divine Insight]

Therefore, the same idea would also apply to good and bad. Many people are living by a false version of good and bad that they believe is true when it never was.

It seems to me that all you are doing is defining your own semantics and then proclaiming that anyone who doesn't agree with your definition isn't accepting the "truth".

Not only this, but based on your definition it certainly appears that notions of "good and bad" would be entirely subjective based on how any given individual happens to emotionally feel about things.

So it seems that all you are actually doing is agreeing that notions of "good or bad" are indeed subjective.

If you are suggesting that this is "truth" then I would certainly agree with that. But I don't see how making an analogy between "good" and "water" helps to clear anything up. Seems like pretty muddy water to me.

In fact, it appears that all you are really saying is that emotions are as real as water. I don't think too many people would argue with that. The problem with bringing into the picture ideas of "good and bad" associated with emotions is that not everyone associates the same experiences with the same emotions. So this would then require that any notion of "good and bad" that is based on emotions is necessarily relative to subjective emotions and experiences of individuals.

No secularist is going to disagree with that. You're not telling them anything they don't already accept as being obvious.

[The Transcended Omniverse]

[Replying to post 8 by Divine Insight]

My worldview is claiming that good and bad is dependent upon emotions. In order for something to have real good value in your life, then that requires that you feel a positive emotion from that said thing. The same idea applies to negative emotions giving our lives bad value. You are right. People will feel different from different things. Therefore, someone who feels a positive emotion in regards to a movie would mean that the movie would be of real good value to this individual. But another person who feels a negative emotion from that same movie, then the movie would be of bad value to that individual. Having no emotions at all can only render your life having no value and no worth at all. Again, it doesn't matter if you believed that positive emotions made things of bad value in your life or that negative emotions brought your life good value; it is only the emotions themselves that dictate the perceived value of things, moments, situations, and people in your life.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 8 by Divine Insight]

My worldview is claiming that good and bad is dependent upon emotions.

So how is this any different from how secularists already view the concept of morality?

I don't think a secularist would argue with what you've just said. It's not like you are saying something that isn't already recognized. In fact, Sam Harris has basically suggested the same thing.

The only "problem" we encounter with this view is that good and evil (morality) basically becomes nothing more than the subjective consensus of the majority based on how they emotionally feel about things. Actually this isn't a "problem" at all unless someone is trying to argue for some sort of absolute morality.

Sam Harris argues that while this view of morality is not "absolute", it's certainly 'objective' (and that allows it to become scientific), if only in the sense that it objectively represents the consensus of the subjective emotions of the majority of individuals involved in defining the concept.

In other words, it's "objective" in the sense that it's based on real emotions, but it's still "subjective" because these emotions are different for different individuals. None the less, we can still create a meaningful system of objective morality based on a large consensus of subjective emotions.

So I don't see where you are proposing anything new.

Secularists don't deny the reality of human emotions.

So how does your worldview differ from that of a secularist?