The Motivation Behind Living
What is the motivation behind staying alive?
I notice that humans in today's society often complain about their lives. This led me to consider why we actually even stay alive. Here's my answer.
Short answer:
Hedonism.
Long answer:
The argument I put forth relies on a single underlying claim—that we are in charge of staying alive. There are plenty of ways one can cease living, and I advise you to consider the following: because you are reading this blog post right now, you are consciously making the decision to stay alive; thus you clearly see a purpose for not ceasing your own life, whatever that reason may be.
First, I'd like to establish that humans operate on the basis of cost-benefit analysis. Now I know that this may not be evident at first, so let me elaborate. Let's take a sample real-life situation. You and your brother both want to go to the park one evening, but only one of you is allowed to go. Originally, you wanted to go, but then you decide to let your brother go to reduce your guilt. Although it may seem like you are clearly losing out, even this altruistic behavior is guided by a cost benefit analysis; the cost of going to the park (your guilt for not letting your brother go) exceeds the benefit of that choice (the happiness you would get out of going to the park). A similar analysis of cost and benefit, or at least our perceptions of the two, is applied to virtually every choice we make.
(www.wireheading.com)
Such a claim is not unfounded. The Olds rat experiment involved a rat who was allowed to push a lever that stimulated brain stimulation reward through intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS). The rat continued to press the lever, readily sacrificing all other actions including sleeping, and even eating and drinking. Eventually, the rat could physically no longer sustain itself and collapsed due to exhaustion. This experiment simply goes to show that the decisions we make are prompted solely by reward.
Let's now connect these two ideas. We choose to stay alive. Thus, we see that the benefit of staying alive exceeds the associated cost.
It can be conclusively stated that humans live for reward and to stay alive. In more scientific terms, reward (e.g. the release of dopamine from our brain or mere will power) reinforces behaviors, and punishment (e.g. pain) inhibits them. We don't stay alive for other people, because we are needed by others, or for the benefit of another entity. We stay alive because we want to.
It's interesting to note that life is the only thing that our mind has experienced, yet we are so attached to it. Even though no breathing soul on this earth knows what may lie beyond life, society is for some reason attached to life so much so that it even goes as far as to claim that life is good and death is bad. Death often holds a pessimistic connotation (perhaps because of its associated unpleasantness), but what's interesting is that this connotation is created entirely by those who are alive—those who know nothing whatsoever regarding what lies beyond life. I suppose that people hate the thought of death (myself included) because we associate it with a sense of loss from our lives, and life is everything to our callow minds. Maybe there's something better beyond life, and maybe there isn't; in any case, we shouldn't be so quick to judge life and death.
For further reading please see:
I notice that humans in today's society often complain about their lives. This led me to consider why we actually even stay alive. Here's my answer.
Short answer:
Hedonism.
Long answer:
The argument I put forth relies on a single underlying claim—that we are in charge of staying alive. There are plenty of ways one can cease living, and I advise you to consider the following: because you are reading this blog post right now, you are consciously making the decision to stay alive; thus you clearly see a purpose for not ceasing your own life, whatever that reason may be.
First, I'd like to establish that humans operate on the basis of cost-benefit analysis. Now I know that this may not be evident at first, so let me elaborate. Let's take a sample real-life situation. You and your brother both want to go to the park one evening, but only one of you is allowed to go. Originally, you wanted to go, but then you decide to let your brother go to reduce your guilt. Although it may seem like you are clearly losing out, even this altruistic behavior is guided by a cost benefit analysis; the cost of going to the park (your guilt for not letting your brother go) exceeds the benefit of that choice (the happiness you would get out of going to the park). A similar analysis of cost and benefit, or at least our perceptions of the two, is applied to virtually every choice we make.
(www.wireheading.com)
Such a claim is not unfounded. The Olds rat experiment involved a rat who was allowed to push a lever that stimulated brain stimulation reward through intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS). The rat continued to press the lever, readily sacrificing all other actions including sleeping, and even eating and drinking. Eventually, the rat could physically no longer sustain itself and collapsed due to exhaustion. This experiment simply goes to show that the decisions we make are prompted solely by reward.
Let's now connect these two ideas. We choose to stay alive. Thus, we see that the benefit of staying alive exceeds the associated cost.
It can be conclusively stated that humans live for reward and to stay alive. In more scientific terms, reward (e.g. the release of dopamine from our brain or mere will power) reinforces behaviors, and punishment (e.g. pain) inhibits them. We don't stay alive for other people, because we are needed by others, or for the benefit of another entity. We stay alive because we want to.
It's interesting to note that life is the only thing that our mind has experienced, yet we are so attached to it. Even though no breathing soul on this earth knows what may lie beyond life, society is for some reason attached to life so much so that it even goes as far as to claim that life is good and death is bad. Death often holds a pessimistic connotation (perhaps because of its associated unpleasantness), but what's interesting is that this connotation is created entirely by those who are alive—those who know nothing whatsoever regarding what lies beyond life. I suppose that people hate the thought of death (myself included) because we associate it with a sense of loss from our lives, and life is everything to our callow minds. Maybe there's something better beyond life, and maybe there isn't; in any case, we shouldn't be so quick to judge life and death.
For further reading please see:
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