Yup. So is cricket. None the less, there is a definite answer to the question “Did so-and-so score 100 runs in the last game, or not?”.
it is a belief which does not relate to an ‘objective’ reality.
OK. But it might (like beliefs about cricket scores) relate to a not-so-objective reality. What you certainly can’t rightly do is leap from “is not a statement of objective truth” to “is a statement of objective falsehood”. If “important” is a predicate that only has a definite meaning once you say for whom, the same is true of “not important”.
once I accept it is a false belief
But that’s exactly what I’m saying you don’t need to do. (Unless the belief in question is that whatever-it-is is universally, eternally important. That might be false. But I don’t see why you need such beliefs in the first place.)
I fail to see the rationality behind the ‘urge’ to explain it any other way.
I’m not sure exactly what “it” is here. The urgency you attach to remaining alive probably is just your survival instinct talking. (Though it may also be influenced by, e.g., other people’s interest in your remaining alive.) But whatever sense of importance you attach to things other than remaining alive surely has other origins.
I am sorry. I must word my argument/question very badly because we are drifting away from my gripe with the article. Perhaps I’ll just close with explaining how I experience life:
Life just is.
Life just tries to keep alive.
To keep alive, humans (and other animals) feel good/bad in certain situations.
To me, nowhere in this, there is anything important, useful or goal-centric.
Since we are aware, cognitive beings, we struggle with reconciling our survival-instinct with the fact it is all pointless. So we invent things like cricket, money, importance, life purpose and whatnot.
Personally I think/believe it would be much better if we all just found comfort in the fact we are all useless and we are all struggling with the cognitive dissonance and we are all in the same pickle and help each other deal with it. rather than trying to find solace in external things, or worse; constructs like ‘importance’ . These may help at times, but they should never be elevated to the status of ’truth/solution/whatever). They are just things we do to kill the time, preferably in a pleasant way. That doesn’t make it important. It is just the way it functions.
Then again. Perhaps I just think and feel like this because I have Dysthymia.
I’ll conclude here the same as below in my other reply: Life is objectively without purpose afawk. The rational thing to do is accept that. To invent subjective purposes is to deny the objective truth. that’s all I am proposing.
Yup. So is cricket. None the less, there is a definite answer to the question “Did so-and-so score 100 runs in the last game, or not?”.
OK. But it might (like beliefs about cricket scores) relate to a not-so-objective reality. What you certainly can’t rightly do is leap from “is not a statement of objective truth” to “is a statement of objective falsehood”. If “important” is a predicate that only has a definite meaning once you say for whom, the same is true of “not important”.
But that’s exactly what I’m saying you don’t need to do. (Unless the belief in question is that whatever-it-is is universally, eternally important. That might be false. But I don’t see why you need such beliefs in the first place.)
I’m not sure exactly what “it” is here. The urgency you attach to remaining alive probably is just your survival instinct talking. (Though it may also be influenced by, e.g., other people’s interest in your remaining alive.) But whatever sense of importance you attach to things other than remaining alive surely has other origins.
I am sorry. I must word my argument/question very badly because we are drifting away from my gripe with the article. Perhaps I’ll just close with explaining how I experience life:
Life just is. Life just tries to keep alive. To keep alive, humans (and other animals) feel good/bad in certain situations.
To me, nowhere in this, there is anything important, useful or goal-centric. Since we are aware, cognitive beings, we struggle with reconciling our survival-instinct with the fact it is all pointless. So we invent things like cricket, money, importance, life purpose and whatnot.
Personally I think/believe it would be much better if we all just found comfort in the fact we are all useless and we are all struggling with the cognitive dissonance and we are all in the same pickle and help each other deal with it. rather than trying to find solace in external things, or worse; constructs like ‘importance’ . These may help at times, but they should never be elevated to the status of ’truth/solution/whatever). They are just things we do to kill the time, preferably in a pleasant way. That doesn’t make it important. It is just the way it functions.
Then again. Perhaps I just think and feel like this because I have Dysthymia.
I’ll conclude here the same as below in my other reply: Life is objectively without purpose afawk. The rational thing to do is accept that. To invent subjective purposes is to deny the objective truth. that’s all I am proposing.