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Gamusino2021 t1_jdl7ae5 wrote

Reply to comment by Miserable_Sun6756 in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | March 13, 2023 by BernardJOrtcutt

if we define "universe having meaning" as something like " there is some goals we objectivly should follow", well, the brain has many innate goals, it evolved to pursue those goals. so when we are realize the universe is actually meaningless it goes against our intincts

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Miserable_Sun6756 t1_jdlad0h wrote

Yea that's kind of what I'm trying to get at, except I would ask why the perceived objectiveness of a goal has any bearing on the chemical-emotional reward we get for pursuing said goal. I think this is done at a cognitive level and we don't actually suffer from the realization that the universe has no meaning until we assign the negative connotation to that fact manually.

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Gamusino2021 t1_jdlawyv wrote

I would say there is no need to assign a negative connotation for us to suffer. A meaningless universe goes against our instincts. For example, for many people, one big part of universe not having meaning is we are going to completely cease to exist, that goes against our survival instinct. Also we have instinct to try to improve the situation, but we will grow old and all we do will dissapear eventually.

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