Feelings or no feelings. Why does it have to go through, what we put it through? So we can prosper, progress, maintain civility & an ever-growing population? Call me self-depreciative. That's rather generous considering my outlook of you.
It doesn't go through anything, suffering implies sentience. Again this seems to be coming down to emotional views on systems of justice inherent in the universe when in fact there are none. Btw, you've done it now dude, I've had this subject mulling over in my mind (in general terms, as you'll soon find out ) for quite a while now. This argument bases itself upon the distinction between emotion and logic in humans. Distinctions may be made between the logical and emotional minds of a person, and this is not to say that they are literally distinct, separate. They, of course, constitute the greater whole of a human mind in an inseparable way, and the interaction between them is so central as to reinforce this. But this distinction between emotional and logical reactions, thoughts, approaches etc. in humans is a useful one. Before I was talking about how 'natural' means next to nothing in logical terms, there is no inherent force of 'natural' which deems some things concordant with nature and others not, independent of ourselves. The same is true of all other forms of perceived justice. Things like 'fair', 'just', ' morally right/good' are all human emotional constructions. They were invented by us, as a result of the emotional way in which humans function as a species, and they are confined to us. They only make sense when talking about interactions between humans, because only then are both parties holding the (for the most part in general appreciation) common ground of appreciation. Look at it like this. If you do something generally agreed to be morally reprehensible, for example murder, other humans will make moral judgement on it. The universe will not, the planet will not, no other life form except for humans will. Justice as an idea was invented by humanity. This justice holds no weight in objective, non human terms. Strictly speaking it holds no logical weight even when looking at human interaction, but can be appreciated as a valuable principle since it stems from a basis common amongst humanity, this being our emotional nature. People over the course of human existence have so often tried to purport some kind of universal grounding in our perceived emotional understanding of the universe when it comes to 'rules' of a sort. Some see things like justice, morality and what is 'natural' to be inherent in the universe, and our emotional reactions to these supposed universal standards as somehow sensing and fitting in with these universal and inherent standards. I can identify with this path tbh, I too am human and I too know all too well how strong and consuming our emotional reaction can be to the ideas of morally wrong or right in any given situation, this is why people thrust this objective importance upon these emotional reactions, conclusions almost. The subconscious train of thought goes something like this: "I have these emotional reactions to the universe, or simply 'emotions', and they are the most mentally dominating and consuming aspects of my personal existence, thus they must mean something. They must have some larger grounding outside of myself, especially since so many of them seem to be held in common with people other than myself, this common and passionate ground must stem from somewhere outside of myself." The conclusion which follows is so often that these emotional appreciations of what can be basically summarised as 'morals' are grounded in a universal basis which transcends humanity. This is, to my mind, the basic premise of religion's emergence within humanity, these ideals transposed on to creator and deity figures who are outside of the confines of 'created' existence yet mirror these aspects of emotional morals (and when you look further back in time, to civilizations such as the Romans and Greeks, other aspects of emotional humanity are mirrored, such as rivalry, pettiness and even hate). But this is not the way I view the universe, it is not the conclusion I have come to, nor can I see the logic in it. The flaw, to my mind, comes in the transition from our common emotional appreciation of morals to a universal basis for them, one independent of humanity. So often emotions clearly fail to correspond with the logic of a given situation, and so often they even contradict themselves. Someone who's emotional response to what they perceive as an unfair situation was very strong could, in turn, find themselves feeling equally hard done by in terms of moral justice when put in the opposite situation. To me, emotions only serve to epitomise the partial nature of being a 'self', that position in which we are placed, just a little bit farther down the road than Cartesian Doubt which is necessary to avoid just sitting around wondering whether anything exists. Emotions are based on the self, they make light of the idea of being 'selfish' as nothing more than a handy yet baseless word with which to deride others. In an existence where emotions dominate our mind, our self, even serve to constitute what we call our self in significant terms, how can anything which yields an emotional reaction within the self be called selfless? What do we mean by 'good people' if the person who is considered morally good is, every time they help that old woman across the street or stand up for the little guy against 'injustice', getting a mental, chemical cookie in the form of that warm feeling, and in turn gets the pain of guilt if they deviate from moral righteousness? Do they choose to be 'good'? Technically yes, but do they choose which actions yield a positive emotion within themselves? Not really. So why is someone who is merely following the emotional balances of reward and punishment within which they find themselves worthy of moral praise from others, an assertion that they somehow fit in with a sense of moral justice independent from even humanity, universal? Could it in fact be that the reason these people are perceived as morally 'good' is because they make us feel good? Is it not a little selfish on the personal level to try and logically justify someone as morally higher than others because they make us feel good emotionally? The idea of 'selfish' holds little weight when the terms in which most people appreciate it are examined in close detail, to my mind at least. But there are some questions with this. If, as I hold, emotions do not act as a sense within ourselves of some larger patterns of justice within the universe, then why are we bound by them? Even then, why have some emotional trends risen high as 'moral', when others are derided as base, selfish and even as vice? The latter question is much more readily answered in light of the first. In keeping with how I understand humanity's existence, I see emotions as one of the most central aspects of our success. Quite why emotions came about as part of our success in evolution is a little fuzzy to me, a suitable understanding of the situation and elements leading up to our evolutionary formation and success is frankly beyond me. But it isn't hard to see why certain emotional trends have taken their place as morally 'just'. They are the logical extension of 'treat others as you would wish to be treated', as discussed above, these people make others feel good in their actions thus their actions are classed as selfless, the assumption on which this is based being lost on most people. This idea of 'selfless' can also be understood in terms of benefitting others, an idea which has obvious ramifications towards the known evolutionary trend of supporting survival of one's own species. And this is where I find my human salvation to be honest, sitting, as I was up until this point, with no morals or justice to put forward, no base on which to discuss and argue, and only the illogical shell of an emotional self to exist within. Because I do not conclude that you should deny your humanity, emotional as it may be in partial nature. Just see emotions and emotional reactions, inclusive of reactions to 'morally right/wrong', 'fair', 'just' and so on, for what they are. The self is bound by the nature of emotion, and emotion is bound by the nature of the self. Partiality and selfishness are not criticisms, they are constants within human existence. When discussing from a similarly a-religious or spiritual standpoint as I myself hold, my opinion is that these emotional bases for argument (all of them as discussed above, good/bad in moral terms, right/wrong in those same terms, fair/unfair, natural/unnatural and so on) cannot be expected to hold logical weight. Arguments should be drawn from logical examination if there is no religious backdrop to provide founding in emotional responses, and this is largely the path I extrapolate to my own chosen path in life. Since I cannot purport to have any morals that are independent of myself or humanity, nothing to put forward in attempts at objective discussion and debate, I find reason in logic, and base what can rather ironically, but usefully, be called my morals in life. I'm not gonna deny my humanity, and I'm not going to avoid making the most of emotional existence. Positive emotions are fun, and I'm not gonna deny that when I do things which some might consider 'good', a decent part of the reasoning is that it makes me feel morally good, which makes life more enjoyable for me. Sometimes this is kind of a silver lining against the conflicting negative emotions I may have about, say, being nice to someone I dislike, but it's still undeniable and there. But in argument, as (or so I would hold) in life, this partial nature of emotional reaction must be seen and borne in mind, and subsequent emotional reactions such as 'that's wrong/unfair/immoral' etc should be scrutinized for actual logical reasoning. I mean, technically there is no real answer for those questions, if there is no justice then why shouldn't everyone just do whatever the hell they like? But where would that get is in comparison to where we are now? These moral appreciations clearly have benefit to humans on the larger scale as well as the smaller one, many serving to facilitate social interaction and expansion to the frankly amazing state in which we now find ourselves. And this is what I follow, this is where my 'anti-morals' come from. The logical extension of all this is, in fact, that human expansion is not more important than keeping other habitats in tact, nor is it less important. Aside from the emotional reactions we have, which cannot be bartered with in discussion since they hold no basis outside of the self in which they are bound, there is no reason to support one over the other. I myself tend toward the survival of our own species with as little pointless cost to others as possible, but even then I do put humanity above other life in that I happily eat meat etc. Technically neither humans nor other life forms 'matter' or are being treated 'unfairly', but I'd bet that a good deal of people here support the survival of our own race over others, if not in conscious argument then in widespread day to day action.