Yaya asked:

I'm just wondering if there is an answer to this but why don't people just do whatever they want? Yes,
they would feel guilty in a way if they did something wrong but who would care? Everyone will die.
Their thoughts will also die with them. For example, no one would remember me since the people that
I've known though out my life will forget me when they die. If someone would argue that people are
remembered though the course of history, that is not true. When the sun goes out, every life form on
this planet will disappear, erasing everything left behind by humans. Including the past, present, and
future of our thoughts. There is a saying that what you do now will effect the future. Why would
anyone care since the truth is that the end is death. Is there really a point in living? I'm sorry to say
but I see no point. Earth is absolutely a hellhole. I believe that to bring a child into life is the most
horrible thing that you could do. Is there really a point for anyone to be here?

============

Yaya alternates between asking genuine, heartfelt questions and asserting claims that seem to rule
out answers in advance. Psychology is not philosophy. There are questions that arise from one's
inquiring mind that are of interest to other such minds, and there are questions that stem from an
investigation into one individual's mental state. I can address only the former.

Some of Yaya's questions presuppose states of affairs that are not obviously the case. For instance,
who says people don'tdo whatever they want? People want a great many things, but they also realize
that their wantings are not mutually compatible and so must be ordered (for example, wanting to
sleep late andmaintain good attendance at one's job). They do what they believe will advance their
most important goals. Also, wanting to feel guilt-free is neither a trivial desire nor a function of
knowing "who would care."

Some people are remembered through the course of history, and some are remembered longer than
others, but Yaya laments that history will come to an end in the (apparently inevitable) heat-death of
the universe and, with that, the abolition of all possible memory. First, it is not clear to me why, unless
that heat-death is just around the corner, it is meaningless to care about one's immediate future and
that of one's loved ones. Millions labor daily for just that, and for them that is enough. Second, even if
heat-death were immanent or, perhaps more relevantly, if no human being will remember us or care
whether we had lived and died, it still may be the case that God does and will. It may be, for all Yaya
has shown to the contrary, that a divine lure has been involved in the self-creation of every
fundamental entity via its mentality and has retained knowledge of every one of them. Third, that
everlasting divine involvement may also issued in the order of the physical universe. The evolution of
that order exhibits a pattern of increasing novelty, complexity, harmony, and contrast. It is not
paradise, and the existence of far too many people is hellish, but it is anything but a unqualified
"hellhole," if that word has any meaning.

The "point" of our being here is to experience as deeply, richly, and intensely as possible, and to
increase opportunities for oneself and others to do so and then to make possible experiences that
surpass those. I'm not sure that the possible response, "What's the point of a deep, rich, and intense
experience?," is coherent. Satisfying and fulfilling experience is at the heart of what it means for
something to have point. As someone wrote recently, "What's my point? Well, does there have to be
a point? The enjoyment of spectacular food, or just really good food in large quantities (southern
barbeque is a case in point) is an end in itself. There needn't be a political or moral implication, or a
practical application, to appreciate and simply enjoy such human artifices as the paintings and
sculptures of da Vinci and Michelangelo; Texas-smoked beef brisket; or Newton's calculus." (Brad
Edmunds, "Italian Cooking Still Wins," http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds131.html
posted February 12, 2003.) Some experiences are just intrinsically good (satisfying and fulfilling),
good in themselves, about which it is absurd to ask, "Now what was that for?" Use your imagination.

That the universe has an order that makes intrinsically good (and rich and complex) experiences
possible should caution one against regarding it as a mindless cauldron of vacuous "matter" in which
persons (who experience ecstasy as well as excruciating pain) are anomalies. Yaya's despair is
premature if he or she has not philosophically ruled out the possibility that the physical universe has a
soul that is as organically related to it as we are to our bodies. If God is ever responding to each
creature's effort at self-creation by luring (but not determining) them to the best that's possible at each
moment, then someone, even if unable to miraculously wipe away every tear, heal every wound, or
prevent every calamity, doescare.

Tony Flood