Cosmic goals no - those being far mode beliefs, if anything they are likely to be counterproductive. But it seems to me that leveling up is something to be done in the service of game objectives, not vice versa. For example, consider the following strategies:
I'm trying to optimize for lifespan. The available evidence says exercise is beneficial for that, so I will set out a program of going to the gym on a permanent sustainable basis as well as cutting down on calorie intake and driving, and aiming within the next decade to move to a region where cryonics is available. To help me achieve these goals, I will design a metric to measure them.
Everybody seems to think you should go to the gym, so I guess I'll go to the gym.
I think the former strategy is, apart from anything else, more likely to have you still going to the gym in six months time. -shrug- It seems most people disagree, based on the vote total; so be it.
I just got this random idea that people who want to become better at life could benefit from a common scale of "leveling". No, I don't mean vague Lesswrongey things like "changing your mind". I mean a set of concrete criteria like "you qualify for level 2 if you can do 5 pull-ups, have solved 30 Project Euler problems, and did 10 cold approaches". Obviously there would be separate ladders for different character classes, but not too many. Also obviously, my example was a bit too high for level 2. So I guess I really want to ask some meta questions here:
1) Do you think agreeing on a common leveling scale would be a good thing for a substantial subset of LW users? Would you feel good about leveling up and telling other people about it on LW?
2) Is there some good way to determine leveling criteria that are neither too high nor too low? Maybe make an intermediate scale of "experience points"?