Since our reward system (pleasant emotions) are the only rewarding experiences we can have and since optimism is always a rewarding experience for us as human beings, then optimism can only be our pleasant emotions themselves and not our attitudes alone or anything else. The term “rewarding experience” has been defined through science as only being our reward system (pleasant emotions) and not our thoughts or anything else alone since our reward system is the only function of ojur brains that can give us a rewarding experience. Therefore, optimism can only be our pleasant feelings/emotions while pessimism can only be our unpleasant feelings/emotions.
Optimism is love, joy, happiness, etc. while pessimism is depression, rage, hate, despair, etc. Therefore, love, joy, and happiness can only be our pleasant feelings/emotions while depression, rage, hate, despair, etc. can only be our unpleasant feelings/emotions. To have good meaning in one’s life is always an optimistic statement which would mean that would have to be a rewarding experience as well. Therefore, our pleasant feelings/emotions are the only things that can give good meaning to our lives. To say that something can be of good value and worth to you even though it is not a rewarding experience for you would be no different than saying that something can be a rewarding experience to you even though it is not a rewarding experience for you. Therefore, that would be a false (contradictory) statement.
Since the moral version of good and bad is defined as being something subjective, then this moral version of good and bad no longer exists anymore. It is fake. Good and bad are now objective (scientific). They are now scientific terms. Our pleasant emotions would have to be the experience of the scientific version of good and our unpleasant feelings/emotions would have to be the experience of the scientific version of bad.
The fact is, there is a psychological basis that determines if one has good or bad meaning in his/her life that people are ignorantly leaving out and saying that a severely crippled depressed person who can hardly function is still living the good life since he/she has told his/herself he/she was still living the good life.
It would be no different than telling a blind and deaf person that he/she can still see and hear since he/she has told his/herself he/she can still see and hear. When you are in a hopeless, bland, and “dead” mindstate due to your depression and/or anhedonia, then that is the mindstate of perceiving neutral (neither good or bad) and the scientific version of bad meaning in your life. But when you are in the vibrant, “alive,” transcending, and vigorous mindstate of experiencing your pleasant emotions (good moods), then that is the mindstate of perceiving the scientific version of good meaning in your life.
The moral version of having good and bad meaning in one’s life would say that it doesn’t matter what mental state you are in. That if you tell yourself you are living a good or bad life, then that makes it so. But having good or bad meaning in one’s life solely depends on what mental state you are in. There is always a scientific (psychological) basis that determines whether we have good or bad meaning in our lives. I already explained it in my previous paragraph above here. That psychological basis is not our thinking. It is our moods.
