Truth With a Dash of Pessimism

I am not a philosopher by any stretch of the imagination.  However, I have an idea I would like to put out there.

First of all, what makes something objective?  It exists from outside our minds.  In short, it seems to me that objectivity is what best describes the actuality of reality.  One of the characteristics of objectivity that I would like to point out is that their seems to be a timeless sort of quality about it.  I'm sure that philosophers could argue about this one, but let me just have this for a minute.

So, we could say that 2+2=4 is an objective truth because it seems that this logic would follow in any part of the universe and at any time (of course, besides the arbitrary symbols we use for numbers and the functions of mathematics).  If I take two hydrogen atoms and bring them together with two other hydrogen atoms, I will have four of hydrogen atoms.  Mathematics seems to have a very real objective quality to it, and a lot of it has to do with it being timeless.  (Think of prime numbers in that scene from the movie Contact)

I will change the subject now.

Being an atheist and often wondering to myself about the purpose of life I am often forced to accept that there probably is no purpose.  I don't mean to be a drag, but if I think about it, if there is no actual purpose of living, I should ditch the dull responsibilities of my life - ie. being a parent, being a husband, holding a job, etc. - (not that I actually think that any of these are dull, but they can be frustrating and challenging) and live life as hedonistic a life as possible.  In short, it seem like the most rational thing I could do, when confronted with the meaninglessness of life, is to try and maximize my pleasure and happiness and anything that tries to challenge me or increase my responsibility should be pushed to the wayside.

Here is the next problem I am confronted with as an atheist:  the slow and eternal death of the universe.  Scientist believe that the universe will end with a whimper, spreading out farther and farther and becoming colder and colder until everything is dead and at near absolute zero degrees in temperature.  So, if I decide to return someones wallet that I have found loaded with cash, it will not effect the the fact that the universe will eventually die.  If I forgive someone who has done me a serious injustice, there will ultimately be no effect on the final destination of my existence a trillion years from now because I'll be dead along with everyone else.  On the other hand, if I decide to steal the money from the wallet or kill that someone who has done me injustice it also won't effect death of the universe and all humanity either. The most rational thing I could do would be to steal the money and kill the person (assuming that I am very confident I won't get caught).

This is where I think it gets interesting - combining these two subjects.

Here is my thesis:  the only way to make life meaningful - in the absence of any god or afterlife - is found in the attempt and success of extending humanity (or what evolves from humanity) into the eternities.  In essence, by making humanity timeless we have created - or more correctly, discovered - the objective truth of how to best live our lives as humans.  In short what I am saying is that there might be a best way of living that would directly result in an "eternal humanity."  Barring this eternal humanity though, life as we know it really is pointless in an eternal perspective.

You're probably asking the questions now:  Is this even possible?  And doesn't this sound like science fiction?  And what does it mean "eternal humanity?"  My answer would be that I have no idea about how possible it would be to extend humanity into the eternal but if it were possible it wouldn't be science fiction.  It would be reality.  The last question is also pretty simple to answer because "eternal humanity" could mean only one of two things:  First, that eventually we find a way to eradicate death and every individual gets to live forever.  Second, death isn't eradicated because it can't be, but we, as a collective of humans, find a way to escape the death of the universe and continue to propagate into eternity.  (I see the second option as much more probable).

I could go on and on about this but I don't want to make this too long.  There are a few problems with this thought that I will address in later posts.  But for now let me say a few more things.

If humanity, right now accepted what I just said as truth, (oh, how it would be to be dictator of the world) then it would drastically change the way everyone lived.  Our focus would shift almost entirely.  Instead of raising generation after generation of scientifically ignorant children, the main focus of schooling would be science and the scientific method.  Instead, of wasting our planet's natural resources on shit we'll throw away soon after we purchase it, we would be much more selective in the things that we actually need.  And many many more things would change.

All in all, I think I've come up with a pretty good moral system.  Actions that would be detrimental to humanity existing forever would be considered evil.  Actions that contributed to humanity existing forever would be considered good.  And actions that have no ultimate consequence (probably the majority of our actions) would be considered morally neutral.

Well that's it for now.  I will be coming back to this subject.  Maybe even in my next post.  Let me know what you think.