> We could reduce the argument that life is about simple pleasure to its logical conclusion
If you really want to reduce, then you might as well go for the physics explanation: everything is deterministically following the laws of physics and any perception from your meat brain about what's desirable or noble or whatever are merely entropic microstates of a
large complex physical system. Therefore, there's no "choice", and whether one specific individual chose to play a game at one time and another chose to study cancer at another time are entirely inevitable outcomes given the exact arrangement of atoms at their respective times.
The idea that an individual conscience has control over any outcomes would have to somehow prove that it's possible for some metaphysical force to change chemical reactions enough to "flip a bit" in a neuron in some way that is capable of affecting a macroscopic human decision that would otherwise have taken a difference course, had one "let" chemistry run its deterministic course.
I've read of experiments where lab rats lost the will to live so to speak, when they had their pleasure chemical receptors short-circuited (meaning, given the choice after experiencing the "neural device", they chose to submit to it). This suggests that motivation is indeed merely governed by a series of chemical reactions, rather than being a supernatural actor in its own right. It just so happens that from a natural selection perspective, organisms that take outside stimulus into account in their pleasure mechanisms are more likely to reproduce. Acts like choosing to play games or choosing to study are, under that interpretation, merely variations of evolved neurological mechanisms attempting to generate dopamine through convoluted means.
If you really want to reduce, then you might as well go for the physics explanation: everything is deterministically following the laws of physics and any perception from your meat brain about what's desirable or noble or whatever are merely entropic microstates of a large complex physical system. Therefore, there's no "choice", and whether one specific individual chose to play a game at one time and another chose to study cancer at another time are entirely inevitable outcomes given the exact arrangement of atoms at their respective times.
The idea that an individual conscience has control over any outcomes would have to somehow prove that it's possible for some metaphysical force to change chemical reactions enough to "flip a bit" in a neuron in some way that is capable of affecting a macroscopic human decision that would otherwise have taken a difference course, had one "let" chemistry run its deterministic course.
I've read of experiments where lab rats lost the will to live so to speak, when they had their pleasure chemical receptors short-circuited (meaning, given the choice after experiencing the "neural device", they chose to submit to it). This suggests that motivation is indeed merely governed by a series of chemical reactions, rather than being a supernatural actor in its own right. It just so happens that from a natural selection perspective, organisms that take outside stimulus into account in their pleasure mechanisms are more likely to reproduce. Acts like choosing to play games or choosing to study are, under that interpretation, merely variations of evolved neurological mechanisms attempting to generate dopamine through convoluted means.