From The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. Sean Carroll. 2016. Kindle online sample. Section 2.
The pressing, human questions we have about our lives depend directly on our attitudes toward the universe at a deeper level.
For many people, those attitudes are adopted rather informally from the surrounding culture, rather than arising out of rigorous personal reflection.
We inherit ideas and values that have evolved over vast stretches of time.
At the moment, THE DOMINANT IMAGE OF THE WORLD REMAINS ONE IN WHICH HUMAN LIFE IS COSMICALLY SPECIAL AND SIGNIFICANT, something more than mere matter in motion.
…
We need to do better at reconciling how we talk about life’s meaning with what we know about the scientific image of our universe.
Among people who acknowledge the scientific basis of reality, there is often a conviction—usually left implicit—that all of that philosophical stuff like freedom, morality, and purpose should ultimately be pretty easy to figure out. WE’RE COLLECTIONS OF ATOMS, AND WE SHOULD BE NICE TO ONE ANOTHER.
…
How hard can it really be? It can be really hard.
Being nice to one another is a good start, but it doesn’t get us very far.
What happens when different people have incompatible conceptions of niceness?
GIVING PEACE A CHANCE SOUNDS LIKE A SWELL IDEA, BUT IN THE REAL WORLD, THERE ARE DIFFERENT ACTORS WITH DIFFERENT INTERESTS, and conflicts will inevitably arise.
…
THE ABSENCE OF A SUPERNATURAL GUIDING FORCE DOESN’T MEAN WE CAN’T MEANINGFULLY TALK ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG, but it doesn’t mean we instantly know one from the other, either.
Meaning in life can’t be reduced to simplistic mottos.
In some number of years I will be dead.
Some memory of my time here on Earth may linger, but I won’t be around to savor it.
…
With that in mind, what kind of life is worth living?
How should we balance family and career, fortune and pleasure, action and contemplation?
The universe is large, and I am a tiny part of it, constructed of the same particles and forces as everything else.
By itself, that tells us precisely nothing about how to answer such questions.
WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO BE BOTH SMART AND COURAGEOUS AS WE WORK TO GET THIS RIGHT.
(end of section 2)
… …
Section 1:
“For a long time, there has been a shared view that there is some meaning, out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered and acknowledged.”
Logical and spiritual, literal with liturgical.
Current Old and church bells-broken mainstream religions might seem non-efficacious.
But these fundamentally teach philosophy needn’t be nor should be completely nor even nearly logical and reasonable, as HAT might at first light seem to be.
They preach wHATever We believe to be true is true, wHATever reality We believe to be real is really real, our faith is the faith, our church is tHAT church.
Deism be too true to be New, sterile not fertile.
Music, art, love, faith, dreams, myths, and religion teach and preach “unreasonable” passion emboldens action above reason and tHAT God is love’s sweet song.
Odd and stranger than now known would be good.
(Byrds songs Change Is Now and Eight Miles High)
….
Section 2:
“The absence of a supernatural guiding force doesn’t mean we can’t meaningfully talk about right and wrong.”
“Giving peace a chance sounds like a swell idea, but in the real world, there are different actors with different interests.”
Oll societal nonsense makes sense if We understand and accept tHAT positive-negative-quark atomic philosophy, including about half of us be negative misery-wuvvers, the more poverty and misery and enjoying complaining about zat the better.
Dem socialist negative misery-wuvvers (we’re united victims and victimizers) know positive happy-lovers’ fatal weakness be We predictably keep thinking “everybody fundamentally wants happy, everything will be okay, go along to get along.”
Dems’ duty be to deride, doff and scoff at positives’ HAT (actual not fictional answers to social problems) and fire-up our side
Dem negatives need not, must not accept tHAT, We want inspire-fire-can not dire-mire-can’t.
Once We accept the reality dem socialist negatives actually consciously and/or subconsciously want misery not happy oll their nonsense makes sense.
In dem negatives’ minds their major failure has been zei have failed to cement their dead old world socialism/misery government-punishment somewhere then finally spread everywhere around Earth.
But, We and They and you see and know there actually be a somewhere: Kim-North Korea.
Demi-commie negatives know zei needn’t to try to force full socialism here, only need to distract, soften, weaken, corrupt, bankrupt and hollow America out.
This will allow Xi-China to catch and pass us and then suppress U.S.
Down-looking king Xi-China teamed with our negatives then can easily take U.S. and All down with dem to zeir final goal: the adored, protected, and coddled model Kim-North Korea.
In Kim-North Korea zeir own misery-wuvver 47.5% negatives + 5% quark shapeless-form mafias have overpowered, subsumed and doomed their 47.5% positives and achieved total control of All-in-prison awful full misery socialism.
…
“We’re collections of atoms, and we should be nice to one another.”
Our positive side’s fatal flaw be believing everybody wants happy.
We don’t need nor want to get rid of dem negatives, zei be good guys with bad terms.
We must be socially friendly with but must be fired up by dem, so All We really want to do is be friends with dem.
As zei get stronger We must get even stronger.
We use psychological not physical violence.
THAT good capitalism and freedom be built on positive go-up envy and happy-love.
Zat bad socialism and kingdom be built on negative go-down jealousy and misery-wuv.
Oll dem negative misery-wuvvers want, cant about, and fight hard for zat.
All We positive happy-lovers understand and know about zat but don’t fight hard enough for tHAT.
Real Republican HATters can and will fight, fight, fight, fight, fight and defeat Dems’ can't chant if, if, if, if, if.
(Byrds songs All I Really Want To Do, My Back Pages, The Bells of Rhymney)
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