Quote:
Originally Posted by Original Position
Yeah, this is my understanding of the situation. The problem is that RLK slips into talking about his argument using the language of cost-benefit analysis or EV calculations, which presupposes that we are talking about something like utility, i.e. comparable quantities. However, if he is talking about utility then his claim that a temporary material life cannot have any utility is just obviously false.
Thus, I think we shouldn't understand him as trying to do this kind of EU calculation, but to instead be making the claim that utility wouldn't have any significance or meaning on the materialistic hypothesis. I.e., while it is true that our decisions can lead to greater or lesser utility, there is no significance or meaning to living a life of greater (or lesser) utility. This would presumably be true of any goal other than utility that we might choose to direct our lives towards as well.
I actually agree with this claim. I understand RLK as talking about what I usually call "ultimate" significance, meaning, or purpose. And I think it's true that on the materialistic hypothesis, there is no ultimate purpose or significance to my life. There are no natural final causes (sorry Aristotle!), and since the natural is all there is, that means there are no final causes--except for the ones we create ourselves. But human-created final causes don't extend beyond the life of humanity, and so are not ultimate, since humanity will at some point cease to exist.
The following does not address the question of God, only that of the mortality of consciousness.
OrP's last paragraph is again pretty close to what I am trying to say. In the materialistic view, my consciousness will end at death. At that point, I will enter a state in which there will be no difference for me from never having existed at all (call it a null state). That condition will persist for eternity. I do not exist, nor is there anything that remains of my having existed (again in my perception).
Now imagine that you could prove that this was in fact true, ie. that my consciousness ends at death. (I am assuming that you agree that however much you suspect that this is the case, you are willing to concede that it is not proven. If that is not true, then I guess I would have to ask for the proof as I have not seen it and the remainder of this does not apply.) Under the assumption that consciousness is mortal, I would make all of the statements that I have seen here. We should live this life to extract what meaning that we can while we can, essentially. And then, good night Irene.
But that does not mean you have actually created real meaning or significance. It is really an illusory meaning, that will vanish at your death. You created it to make your life a little more tolerable.
Take the other case, in which consciousness does not terminate at death. What does that mean? Well clearly I do not exactly know, but it does create the probability that everything that you do creates a truly persistent effect within you and the other consciousnesses (is that a word?) that you interact. An effect that is never reduced to a null state. Would that not be of infinitely greater significance than the illusory meaning created to deal with mortality? If there is a possibility that this is true, should that not be at least a factor in how we live our lives?