All our emotions are explicable as rewards or punishments for the discovery of, pursuit of, obtaining of, hoarding of, consumption of, resources of every conceivable kind.
That’s it. The universe is a simple place with simple rules of operation. Man is a simple creature with simple rules of operation. We seek to acquire, preserve, and consume, that which is to our advantage.
It’s just that we’re pretty amazing in the scope of things we can use to our advantage. We haven’t discovered anything new to eat on this planet in 200 years. Think about that. It’s a big planet when there are just a few tens of millions of us.
We haven’t found a new basic chemical reaction in quite a while.
We haven’t found a basic metallurgical reaction in quite a while.
We are pretty good at searching and finding. Actually, we’re scary good at it. To the point where the basic problem of scientific investigation today is just the cost of basic research given the energy requirements for many of our investigations.
It’s the accumulation of logical, mechanical, and cooperative tools that we create from basic resources, that make it possible for us to envision so many new possibilities.
It’s so awesome.
But our emotions are just drugs: rewards and punishments for being a good labrador retriever for our genes.