- Valence
- Predictive modeling
- Volitional maturity
Even if there were an objective meaning to life, you cannot have it directly. You have you. And regardless of your delusions of rainbow interconnectivity, fundamentally you have your experience, your limits, your projections, and your relation to reality.
In this case, I’m pointing to your quality of experience: valence. Whether you like it or not, whether it feels good or bad, whether it attracts or repels you, this is the realest, if not only, basis from which any morality, ethics, or framework of “should” can become experientially meaningful.
Your valence.
Predictive modeling gets us back to the actuality of a reality about which you can be more or less correct. Yes, you are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to results. Results come from the effectiveness of your actions, which can be guided by predictive models and volitional maturity.
Predictive modeling also points to the proper use of the past, which is not to lament or jack off, but to learn lessons insofar as that means integrating what happened into your capacity to use this moment for future moments.
Functional predictive models.
Volitional maturity is how we get from single-brain-cell pleasure-seeking to restraint, discipline, willpower, and determination according to predictive models in service to the valence of future moments of experience.