Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Importance of ''Efficiency'' in minimizing suffering

Well, to put it simply, in a nutshell, this means that if a person is pursuing any other goal in life than maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering, he or she is wasting his time and life, by doing ''inefficient'' things and actions. Now we must define ''efficient'', because it is very important, most important, that we maximize our efficiency in our lives.
Here is the reason why: The definition of ''efficient'' is ''to be acting in such a way as to be minimizing waste of resources, including time, money, and work, as well as physical materials. And we can define ''waste of resources'' as that use of resources which doesn't go directly toward minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure.
Any behavior other than acting in such a way as to minimize suffering and maximize pleasure is a waste of resources which could be used better if used to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering, and therefore such waste is an ''inefficient'' use of resources, including time.
You can see then why ''efficiency'' is not only much more important than commonly recognized, but in fact it is the most important thing of all, properly defined, since the most important thing of all is minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure.
In fact, that is the only important thing that there is, in the whole universe, because all other ''useful'' activity is useful only to the degree that it serves to minimize suffering, and to maximize pleasure, by definition of ''useful''. This philosophy is known as Eudemonism, from Aristotle.