by Dish Staff
Alan Lightman shares the “tentative conclusions” he’s drawn from thinking about how to live with the belief that law, culture, and social codes “have no intrinsic value outside of our minds”:
[U]ntil the day when we can upload our minds to computers, we are confined to our physical body and brain. And, for better or for worse, we are stuck with our personal mental state, which includes our personal pleasures and pains. Whatever concept we have of reality, without a doubt we experience personal pleasure and pain. We feel. Descartes famously said, “I think, therefore I am.” We might also say, “I feel, therefore I am.” And when I talk about feeling pleasure and pain, I do not mean merely physical pleasure and pain. Like the ancient Epicureans, I mean all forms of pleasure and pain: intellectual, artistic, moral, philosophical, and so on. All of these forms of pleasure and pain we experience, and we cannot avoid experiencing them. They are the reality of our bodies and minds, our internal reality. And here is the point I have reached: I might as well live in such a way as to maximize my pleasure and minimize my pain. Accordingly, I try to eat delicious food, to support my family, to create beautiful things, and to help those less fortunate than myself because those activities bring me pleasure. Likewise, I try to avoid leading a dull life, to avoid personal anarchy, and to avoid hurting others because those activities bring me pain. That is how I should live.
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