First, I need to briefly describe my thoughts on the significance of the moment then I will work my way from there into how it relates to morality.
If we do not remember our childhood then is not as if it never happened? Is it not as if it never existed – at least to our subjective perspective?
Fifty years from now if I will not remember this day, it is as if this day (today) never occured. So, I reason, only the moments that we remember are moments in which we live(d). If our minds focus intensly on a specific moment in time, remember that moment, then we are always living in that moment. The times we do not remember we do not exist in – they are as if they never happened. As life to our linear minds is a continium of moments in the everpresent present, then the object of life is to live and exprience great moments in our lives. Our lives shall culminate to a few great moments and a few tragic and dreadful moments. Throughout our childhood we may have lived twelve years but only remember two occasions; our whole childhood is summed up in the two occasions that we remember. In fact, we are still present (in our minds) in those two childhood moments. The moments that we remember tend to be the moments that have had the greatest impression on us. Triumphant moments, happy moments, tragic moments, glorious moments and the like. Now, as I pressume only these moments to be life I also speculate that acting immorally will ultimatly be detremental to our lives. Givin that we only live in a few moments – those that we intenslly remember – then when we act immorally, say we murder a person for money, we shall always live in that moment. Let’s say we get away with the murder, we don’t believe in god, and we don’t feel guilty for having commited the crime. I argue that our mind will never be able to free itself from the act. We will not be able to find our happiness from the money we attained because we won’t ever be able to fully live in the current present but shall always be weighted down by our action in the past. We’ll never be able to free our minds from the crime. It will be this type of moment and other immoral moments that will culminate into the totality of our lives. We can either act morally - by what our conscience deems to be good - and live in the rewards of virtue or we can punish ourselves by acting against our conscience and live in the moments of our sins.
A brilliant prose! I like it. You are good at expressing your feelings.
But, from a philosophical perspective. Your argument relies on someone already knowing what they do is immoral. If they do, then they should never act in opposition to their conscience, for as you said, nightmare occurs.
How do you convince an amoral person to act morally?
I am as aware that I exist in this exact moment as any other. Since this moment is present, and not past, I am not remembering it, but experiencing it. Unless, of course, life works with a five second time delay… like what the NFL did after Janet Jackson’s boob popped out.
I understand your first point but the moral factor is irrelevant. Morals are nothing but self implementing social codes. It is not morality but character that will determine one’s ability to live the greatest moments in ones life continuously. Perhaps though everyday should be worth remembering, otherwise what use is it? Everyday we should fight, love, fear, hate , we must live in extremes. Mediocrity is deadly. The only truly tragic tales are the ones not worth telling. For the intense crashes, falls, and deprivations of life are glorious. They are a testament to man’s potential. It should be remembered that our fictions have come from our minds and if we can live the greatest tales there we can surely live them here. Would you rather read of monotony or tradjedy. I would rather die broken than untested.
I really liked your response. (Unrelated to the topic, but) In general ppl choose the life of mediocrity, b/c theyd rather take the shortcut than take the extra minute to do things thoroughly and put everything they have into it. Laziness is one of man’s worst enemies.
Okay, if the glorious moments are the ones that are remembered, then if at the age of 13 I see a burning building, and run into that building and save 5 people, then I will equally be stuck on that moment. If I believe in no god, and feel no guilt about murder, then these different acts will have no inherent psychological distinction when I think about them. They will be equally remembered and my mind will be bound to each event equally.
If I feel no guilt about murder, and instead I focus on the power and absolute control that it gave me, the rush of exitement that made me feel more alive then, than I had felt before and after it, then why would I punish myself over it? It wouldn’t be a sin to me, if I feel no guilt over it.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premises. You premise that this person believes in no god, and does not find murder to be a “bad” thing, as it causes them no guilt. Then in the end you conclude that because of this it is better not to murder because you will live in the shadow of your sins. You recognize that the murderer is pyschologically/morally different than you, and then in your last few sentences you condemn him based off your morality, not his.
there is a problem with this moments theory. life is more than kodak. what you remember today and what you remember tomorrow is not the same thing. if you feel inclined to hear what the frenchies have to say, you might try a la recherche du temps perdu. (doesnt translate worth a damn)
also, i tend to live a rather depraved life, and in spite of what you seem to think, there is a certain psychological depreciation at work. the first time you indulge in [insert what you consider to be positively the most depraved act possible] you might be impressed. as time goes by and you keep doing it you will be impressed less and less, and soon you will have to find some other way to support your psyche, because simply shocking it wont do, it stretches. they even have a law describing this, saying that stimuli need to rise in geometric proportion for the respective sensations to rise in arithmetic proportion.
now trying to correlate that with your theory we get the result that you essentially have a set ammount of “impressionability” in you, and when thats used up you are esentially dead. best course of action would be to live as sheltered and vicariously (winks at she) as possible to save your “self”. experience contradicts this however, and it is not because there is always something new, or something more, but because of the way we make sense of our past.
