Chapter 668: communication

There are ten full professors at the Austrian Law Institute of Meadgard University. Joan wrote a letter to each professor. The content is exactly the same. Except for routine greetings and self-introduction, the focus is actually only one sentence:
What is the point of living in the world?
This question has puzzled Joanne for a long time, and with his intelligence property of up to 29, he can't think of an answer that can make him feel at ease.
At the time, he decided to leave his alma mater Leiden College and apply to the Austrian Academy of Meadgard University. A very important purpose was to enter higher-level institutions and seek help from more knowledgeable professors to answer his confusion.
Joan raised this question to the professors in a letter with a very religious attitude. However, the most difficult thing for people is to understand each other. The question he raised in the letter seems to have nothing to do with academics, which makes many professors feel offended and even annoyed by his unusual practice.
Due to school regulations, professors are not good at not replying, most of the reply to Joan has only one sentence:
"I am not interested in this issue."
The subtext is obvious: professors are not interested in students who ask such naive questions.
There is also a professor who said in a sarcastic tone in his reply: Mr. Vader who is good at thinking, you should apply to the seminary or philosophy school, those places are more suitable for you to seek the meaning of life.
This is not the worst attitude.
A young professor even publicly used his letter as a joke in the office, asserting in front of his colleagues that
Joan Vida is a complete nerd
,
Negative thoughts, naive and ridiculous
,
What he needs is psychological Doctor, not Austrian mentor."
Fortunately, not all professors regarded Joan's letter as a joke, and three professors wrote back to him in a more sincere manner, and tried to answer his questions in the letter.
Dean Franklin is one of the three professors who wrote back seriously. He wrote a lot of life philosophy, encouraged Joan to treat life positively and optimistically, and said that the value of a person depends on his social contribution, even if it is difficult in the end After escaping to death, future generations will remember his contribution to promoting social development and civilization progress.
Dean Franklin's positive optimism and lofty sense of mission revealed in his reply to his identity as an "Enlightenment Thinker".
In fact, Mr. Ann understands all the truths described by Mr. Dean, but he feels that Mr. Franklin has misunderstood the question he raised.
The focus of Joan’s concern is not whether a person’s death is a lifetime of love, longevity, or no one cares about them. These are all evaluations from others. For a deceased person, no matter whether he is praised, criticized, or forgotten, he has no way of knowing , What's the point?
The key lies in how to persuade one to live a strong life when he is alive, especially when he is frustrated, hit and suffering, when he realizes that life is more painful, and when he realizes that the individual and even the universe are destined to escape. It will inevitably breed an inexplicable sense of absurdity and emptiness. At this time, how to prove that your existence is meaningful, rather than a decisive choice to end life.
There are many problems in life, and the most serious of all problems is "suicide".
The answer to this question determines whether a person still needs to think about other issues.
If the "pain" and "happiness" experienced by one's life are assigned to the utility values ​​and weighted statistics, then for most people, the total utility of pain is actually much greater than the total utility of happiness. Net worth is pain.
From the perspective of mathematical statistics, with the exception of a very few lucky people, the vast majority of people in the world work hard to live a lifetime just to suffer.
If people have the right to choose whether they are born or not, most people should not be born according to the rational principle of seeking benefits and avoiding harm, or they should choose to destroy their bodies at the moment of awakening their free will, so as not to continue to accumulate the net pain.
Obviously, Joan’s conclusion based on reason is a very pessimistic nihilism.
He himself could not find a logical loophole in the above derivation process, but he had a vague intuition, or sensibility, telling him that this way of reasoning was wrong, otherwise intelligent creatures including humans should have chosen to commit suicide. Now, how can we develop an increasingly civilized and progressive social form?
So what is the problem?
Does the imagination of the human community have a function similar to self-deception, which can make people temporarily get rid of the shackles of reason, and believe that tomorrow will be better and better by imagination alone, and believe that there are more good people in the world, more and more To gain a positive and optimistic life motivation?
In fact, another professor who seriously wrote back to Jo Ann did put forward the above theory.
This professor and professor spent two thousand words explaining to Joan why "imagination" is so important. Without this ability, human beings cannot evolve into a wise modern man, and they cannot be optimistic about the future. It is impossible to form a broad and constantly changing social consensus and legal order.
Joan admits that the professor's exposition is very exciting and inspiring.
But there is a cold reality between the lines in the other party's words: the vast majority of us are actually living in a beautiful fantasy of the future.
But historical data can prove that the vast majority of the hopes of the vast majority of people will not be realized in the end, and there are no less than a few successful people who can promote the progress of civilization.
Can this kind of survival motivation based on "imagination", which is actually self-deception in the statistical sense, really last forever?
Qiao An looked at the Wanjia lights on the city street outside the window, and reason again prompted him to have an ominous hunch.
This city looks thriving, and people living here no matter how difficult the situation is, at least there is hope in their hearts that "the future will be better."
This is because the whole society is still in the ascending period, people come to the colonies to seek wealth, and the vast and fertile land is enough to bear their dreams.
However, with the passage of time, the population of the colony is increasing, the cities are becoming more and more crowded, the land and mineral resources available for development are becoming scarcer, and it will become more and more difficult for people to realize their dreams. .
Once people realize that their efforts are unlikely to receive the expected rewards, self-motivation based on imagination will irretrievably break down, forming a kind of positive feedback of "breaking the jar and breaking".
If on that day, people will choose to treat work and life passively, anyway, it is useless to work hard, hard work can not earn a few money, it is better to wait for death.
Next, people will gradually abandon traditional morals and family values, and lose interest in getting married and having children-anyway, the children still have to suffer when they are born. It is better to not let them be born and save this crime.
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