Also, does imagining, yourself being tortured elicit a strong reaction. Does imagining someone else being tortured elicit a strong reaction.
Imagining myself being tortured elicits a dull squeamishness. Imagining others being tortured usually does nothing, but sometimes when I'm frustrated it makes me feel good. That scares me. I never (or at least rarely) feel the urge to harm someone in real life. Even slightly injuring a fly makes me sad.
Finally, as someone who doesn't care about much you have the excellent oppurtunity to relatively unbiasedly choose your values, choose what you prefer to prefer.
There is some part of me that is terrified of choosing the "wrong" values. Some part of me still seems to believe in some ultimate objective terminal value. I fear following something I think I value or think I should value but really don't.
There is some part of me that is terrified of choosing the "wrong" values.
Hm. Terror sounds like an emotion to me.
Do you imagine, feel, or fear shame?
I am still quite new to LW, so I apologize if this is something that has been discussed before (I did try and search).
I would't normally post such a thing, as I try not to make a habit of complaining my problems to others, but a solution to this would likely benefit other rationalists (at least that's the excuse I made to myself).
Essentially, I am currently in a psychological state in which I simply have no strong values. There is no state of the world that I can imagine the world being in that generates a strong emotional reaction. Ever. In fact, I rarely experience strong emotions at all. When I do, I savor them whether they're positive or negative. I do have some preferences; I would somewhat prefer the world to be some ways than others, but never strongly. I prefer to feel pleasure rather than pain; I prefer the world to be a good place than a bad one, but not by much. Even my desire to have values seems to be a mere preference in much the same way. I have nothing to protect.
Is there any good solution to this?