Candidate: Wow! What an amazing compilation of thought. I am sitting in my home feeling very empty.. A while ago, after trading religion for intellect, I began to pay attention to science. Human nature(fear of death, the desire for purpose in life,), motivated by evolution, has shaped the belief systems of our society. These systems, I believe, serve to distract from the pain and fear of a life with no purpose(discounting the practical purpose of us being food for worms or fertilizer for plants, which puts us on an equal value with poop.) My science based philosophy allows me only a few choices, 1. suicide, of which my nature won't allow and 2. apply one of societies distractions to my life, such as religion, collecting, drugs, t.v., materialistic pursuits or 3. live my life out with a negative view of the world, seeing people as weak minded and life with out meaning. I'll probably mostly live under choice number three with a little bit of number two(collecting, drugs and t.v., Hey! maybe I'll collect drugs and t.v.s) I told someone that I had come to this reality and they felt sorry for me. I posed the question to them "would you chose to be mentally challenged in a constant state of happiness or would you rather be somewhat depressed with intellect?" They chose the former, I on the other hand chose intellect. Intellect affords me some self esteem. So, I guess I will continue on my path, as sad as it is. I do take comfort in knowing there are others with similar beliefs. thanks,
Dima: Everything you said makes some sence, but it's missing something as well. I don't know how to clearly express the difference in out thoughts. Beyond option 3 lies the only logical choice, which is to continue acting as if there is a purpose to life and we are searching for it. Something we termed the Non-Specific Goal (NSG). The reason for this assumption is clearly defined in "Derivation of the goal":
http://singlegoal.competivism.com/singlegoal
The site is a compilation of many pages, many attempts at trying to word the same thing. None are nearly perfect yet. I can't tell you which one is best to read, the side contains links to most of the pages, some directly, some indirectly from personal pages linked from "About Us". So if you are interested in understanding the fourth option, do try to read though the texts.