yeah its a self aggrandizing title. im a self aggrandizing kind of guy. what else would better get your attention on the main page? “A Simple Catch All Theology”? boring.
heres a new version of what youve probably all heard me rant about, that i want to boastfully draw attention to, that i already wrote, somewhere else:
i would wildly speculate that what buddha really means is that the only thing about the meaning of the universe that can be comprehended by humans (especially if its description relies somehow on the nature of humans) then the best way to find it is to look at what happens inside humans. (sorry about syntax there, you know what i meant)
i think me and buddha agree that the greatest meaning of the universe, certainly the greatest meaning humans can find, is what makes everyone feel the most “good”. because nothing else can be objectively described as “good”, and nothing else is ever actually considered in that category.
i mean whatever it is that humans derive happy brain chemicals from. and the only thing that we define those chemicals from can be explained in the context of pursuing survival as a caveman. we like the happiness of sex, victory, empathy and anything else for one reason: liking things like that in caveman/monkey/lizard times caused more survival.
i mean that buddha is subtly suggesting what ive just said, but my combination of a paperback called How the Mind Works by steven pinker, which focuses heavily on evolution’s impact on the mind, makes me a greater authority than a worshipped prophet. i know the purpose of the universe, it is happiness. and happiness comes from satisfying desires that can be described as causing more surival for cavemen. thats the purpose. and buddhist like introspection (as well as some archaeology and genetics) will find that that is the only purpose for humans to pursue. especially if we are to assume that the purpose of the universe includes humans and our decisions.
and also the only reason why people arent already completely happy is because the complexity of the man made world causes miscalculations to be made regarding how much happiness in the long term will be created by any given decision. we are forced to base all our decisions on inductive experienced gathered in past examples of similar yet different scenarios where we were forced to choose satisfying one set of emotions at the cost of another, and we determined how much happiness resulted in the long run. the problem is that the inductive experience isnt accurate enough to make perfect decisions. the happiness reward for successfull completion of caveman actions like sex and victory was designed to be based on caveman scenarios. the answer to what to do when faced with a lion is simple, but the answer to stopping people from asking you for money or blowing up your buildings is more complex.
but the answer to every decision anybody ever makes under any circumstances is: what makes more happiness? the only problem is knowing which will make more. with enough appropriate inductive experience, it is possible to tell which makes more. objective good does exist, its just a matter of knowing enough about it.
does it matter that ive discovered this? well, im gonna make a new thread out of this anyway.