So Useless! (Everyday Life That is!)

Well... First we'd need to find the use.

A vacuum is useful when it does what it's supposed to do: cleaning your apartment well.
A hammer is useful when it does what it's supposed to do: hammering nails into the wall.

A vacuum is useless when it is used to hammer nails in the wall...


(Sidetrack alert!) So what is the use of a human? What is its purpose of life?

I don't know... Nobody knows... I don't think there even is one...

So if we are to discuss the usefulness of life, then we'll firstly have to define what the use of life is. (Or if there is any.) (End of sidetrack)


As for the usefulness of everyday life, this is alot easier: it is useful (if done properly).

According to the sociobiological anthropology put forth by Richard Dawkins, genes, and therefore you yourself (albeit unconciously), will focus on surviving, at every minute of every day...

Now... Everyday life generally consists of 2 things: working/schooling, and enjoying yourself/socializing. And what's the purpose of these things?

School prepares you for a good job with which you can earn good money, with which you can in turn, survive better than with a shitty job.

A job (as said above) earns you money, which increaces your chances of survival more so than, say, being a beggar.

Socializing gets you friends, who will (hopefully) protect you when you're in trouble (be it physically, mentally, financially, etc.). AND it puts you in a position where you can meet potential mates...

Having fun/doing hobbies makes you content, happy, and therefore, it makes you more friendly and attractive (have you ever been in love with a sadhorn? I think not). Therefore ensuring more friends, maybe even a mate. But more importantly: less stress, and therefore a healthy mental state. 'Cause let's face it: you're only going to jump in front of the train if you're depressed... Which having fun should prevent. Again: survival chance jumps up.

In short: everyday life's unconcious and ultimate purpose/use is to give you a better chance for survival.


Conclusion: whether your everyday life is useful or not, depends solely on the person. If YOU fulfil the use of everyday life, then your everyday life is useful. If not, THEN, and ONLY THEN will it be useless...



Do note, however, that this is only and just the sociobiological viewpoint of psychology and the explanation to everyday life... This is my preffered anthropology, simply because it makes so damned much sense, and I have therefore selected this one to counter your statement of 'everyday life... useless!'.

But it could be wrong...

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Originally Posted by GestaltAlteration

Why should I care about the present if in an instant it no longer exists? We seem so fond of looking billions of years into the past, but cannot bother to do the same for the future-- when we will inevitably be something different, or no longer exist. The "here and now" view is so incredibly futile, why? Say I have a great time, awesome, my entire existence is worth it. The next day I become severely depressed, my existence is worthless and I may as well kill myself.

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You let us know when the present ceases to exist :)

If you find everything to be passing away and therefor futile, what makes you expect a situation of permanence after death? If you've existed in total dissatisfaction to date and expect nothing else from this life, then in what sense would 'you' be present in a setting of total happiness?

You're presenting us with Pascal's Wager, which fails on many levels, but mainly because God and nothingness were never the only possibilities, nor are either suggested by the world we inhabit. In a world where no thing has lasting form, nor is any thing outside the continuity of cause and effect, what are the odds that each human has a fixed or permanent nature that leaves the system, either ceasing to exist or going elsewhere when we die?

What if no one lets you off the ride at the end, and the likelihood of reaching a state as pleasant, with as much opportunity for peace and fulfillment as this one (by the universe's standards) is worse than lottery odds?

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Originally Posted by CryoDragoon

Do note, however, that this is only and just the sociobiological viewpoint of psychology and the explanation to everyday life... This is my preffered anthropology, simply because it makes so damned much sense, and I have therefore selected this one to counter your statement of 'everyday life... useless!'.

But it could be wrong...

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wow


the sociobiological view point is pretty damn stupid :? the things we do for fun are so diverse, and neither do they automatically make us 'friendly' or even 'attractive' or even 'social'. they don't have help us survive the least

human beings are creative and emotional people, we have a desire to be individuals and to express our free will. its pathetic always trying to explain with survival or sex. just accept you are an emotional and free willed being.

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wow


the sociobiological view point is pretty damn stupid :? the things we do for fun are so diverse, and neither do they automatically make us 'friendly' or even 'attractive' or even 'social'. they don't have help us survive the least

human beings are creative and emotional people, we have a desire to be individuals and to express our free will. its pathetic always trying to explain with survival or sex. just accept you are an emotional and free willed being.

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Okay... So I might've gone a bit too far with that.

So let's clear up some misconceptions (that I have brought upon myself, sadly)...

On the deepest level we are biological machines. We are the survival mechanisms for our genes.

HOWEVER... We humans have evolved. We have developed huuuge brains. And with those brains, we have 'transcended' our biological heritage, so to say. In stead of mindlessly attending our emotions and our primal instinctive drives, we now have a way to keep them at bay. We now have a way to contemplate them, even, and search for the best course of action, even if it goes against our primal drives. We have now even come to a point where survival isn't an everyday care anymore, so we can do hobbies now. At least more so than in the past.


Now... About that emotional and free will part: I'm not saying at all that we AREN'T emotional or free willed.. I'm just saying that somewhere in the line, there's a survival aspect involved. And if we are to look at the purpose of everyday life, it is (mainly) to survive (again: school, jobs, etc.).
So yeah... True, we are biological machines developed to survive, but again: we have transcended this level of mindlessness. We have acquired ratio. And WITH that we have gained a certain point where we can actually keep our primal drives at bay, where we can express ourselves differently, where we can judge things, etc.

Still: if you were to look at even psychology, you WILL find that many, MANY things, including emotions, friends, violence, etc. can be deduced to a more survivalistic purpose, to a more individualistic purpose (yes, even behavior in car-driving can be deduced to this level).
If you look at a person having a fight with another person, for example, he is clearly angered by that person. Why? Because he feels threatened by his target (ultimate deduction: survival chance has been brought down). He feels that either his personal value, or those of his friends or his family have been lowered. OR he has been stolen from (personal possessions --> recources --> higher chance of survival). And he does not accept that. He will try to gain more self-value, by lowering the value of the person that he's having a fight with, eliminating him as a threat.
Indeed, if you look at even the situation at home (how that person has been raised, and how the family condition was), you will see that most aggressive persons would have had a low value forced onto them (they were beaten, cursed at, or simply hadn't been paid much attention to). This urges them to acquire a higher one, by looking for trouble, and 'artificially' raise their own by lowering others (for example).

Also: please note that while our culture has evolved at an EXTREMELY fast rate, biological evolution is SO slow that our biological brain is still adapted, and wired to the time when we were 'cave-men', so to say... This is why we still have those ultimate survivalistic drives. We simply haven't evolved to be comfortable in this society... This, again, explains much phenomena such as violence, shyness, friendliness.


Also: we don't have a totally free will. The genes are the blueprints of our bodies, and therefore, the blueprints of our brain. So somewhere, those genes have had an impact inside our brains as well.
Therefore: one person will be more tempted to do one thing, while the other is more tempted to do the other, just as one person has blue eyes, and the other one has brown. All thanks to the genes that make up how our brains will look like... The size of the brain, the sizes of the areas of the brain, the structures, etc. Homosexual people do not have a real choice. This has been repeatedly studied, and it is a nice example. Their brain structures as well as certain genetic and cellular structures are different from those of heterosexual people. They can do it with women, but it just goes against their biological yearning. So: you could, technically speaking call this 'free choice'... But is it really?

Aside from the genes and the brain, you should not forget to, again, also include the cultural influences and the way we are raised, as this also hugely impacts our rationale. Just look at fundamentalist muslims (just an easy example as we've all seen these... haven't we?)... They have been raised in such a way to behave like they do. Their brains have been shaped in such a way that they behave like they do, and therefore their free will has been manipulated. Tampered with. That is not to say that they can't act differently, that they can't think differently. It's just that their ability to do so has been severely decreased, and that they'd have to 'rewire' their brain someway or another to stop doing what they do. Again: even though this is totally possible, we can't really talk about free will here, anymore, can we?


So: NO-ONE has an absolute free will... Not even the nihilist of the child, the Übermensch, who has de-attached herself from the bonds of religion and culture, and who 'just accepts things as they are', simply because she would still have genes, she would still have experiences to shape their thinking process, and she would still be biological machines that'd be like any other animal on this planet: a survivalist...

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You let us know when the present ceases to exist :)

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How's this one for you? Death.

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If you find everything to be passing away and therefor futile, what makes you expect a situation of permanence after death? If you've existed in total dissatisfaction to date and expect nothing else from this life, then in what sense would 'you' be present in a setting of total happiness?

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Most of what I've said isn't even my real views-- it's what I perceive would remain if one became a true atheist. We can tack on fancy words and get philosophical all day long-- but if life is it and we are a product of chance than everything we do of meaning is temporary and (fine, to an extent) futile. Yes, sure it's all "fascinating" and "beautiful". That's also a series of neuron impulses destined to be snuffed away. I feel like a broken record here...

What do I expect? I have faith. Faith is frowned on here in dreamviews, so I'll leave it at that.

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You're presenting us with Pascal's Wager, which fails on many levels, but mainly because God and nothingness were never the only possibilities, nor are either suggested by the world we inhabit. In a world where no thing has lasting form, nor is any thing outside the continuity of cause and effect, what are the odds that each human has a fixed or permanent nature that leaves the system, either ceasing to exist or going elsewhere when we die?

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I would like to know the alternative possibilities, first off. Secondly I say the chance of ceasing to exist is very high. Likewise, going elsewhere is a very low chance and would require an external prompting. We are what our brain is, we are what our genes are, we are what our experiences are. If these are taken at death and, by some chance, we return through this "series of cause and effect" than the chances that all three factors have changed is high. This is just entertaining the idea, personally I don't think the cold eyes of the universe would bother recycling us. We're one planet in the midst of an ocean. The best we can hope for to remain in the system is our molecules breaking up and lingering around. What fun.

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What if no one lets you off the ride at the end, and the likelihood of reaching a state as pleasant, with as much opportunity for peace and fulfillment as this one (by the universe's standards) is worse than lottery odds?

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I'd say our very ability to a) exist, b) exist as well as we do, c) type on a computer, and d) think about what we are typing coherently, is a wee bit harder than lottery odds. Because of this in part I believe in a creator. With a belief in a creator I believe in the promises of the future. Faith.

"In stead of mindlessly attending our emotions and our primal instinctive drives"

our emotions are not primal. a look at human emotions will clearly show they are far advanced, and shit complicated than any other living thing on earth. it is attending to our emotional needs that gives us the most pleasure, the most happiness, the most peace on earth. when I said we were emotional beings, I am saying we have an EMOTIONAL NEED that is not about - survival. We have an emotional desire to find happiness. Its our idea of what happiness is it what will ultimately drive your life. Happiness however is not survival, you will not drop dead if you are not happy.

Our drive for happiness is what sets us apart from animals. We've even go so far as to manipulate the temperature in our homes should the temperature outside make us unhappy.

"I'm just saying that somewhere in the line, there's a survival aspect involved. And if we are to look at the purpose of everyday life, it is (mainly) to survive (again: school, jobs, etc.)"

of course, you don't got a job you don't have a home, you don't have food, you can starve right? but no one drops dead either when they retire. the majority of what we desire to do, has no survival aspect behind it.

and many look forward to early retirement. people work hard, to transcend the need of working. to do the activities they find more meaningful in life. of course that doesn't always work does it? sometimes its just feels like all our hard work goes down the drain and we can never escape a shitty job. but certainly our real desire for working hard IS TO TRANSCEND WORK.

"Still: if you were to look at even psychology, you WILL find that many, MANY things, including emotions, friends, violence, etc. can be deduced to a more survivalistic purpose, to a more individualistic purpose (yes, even behavior in car-driving can be deduced to this level)."

you can deduce anything and find any arbitrary meaning. im sure a fundie can deduce life and conclude all activities on earth are satanic. an individual purpose in life is not the same as a survival purpose. our desire to be happy, to find peace will drive is thousands of miles further than our desire to live. and many times, our individual goal will CONTRADICT our survival needs. architect students for example will actually go with out sleep or proper food and water for DAYS, literally DAYS just to finish a school assignment.

because becoming an architect, was more important than their own health. and I knew an architect student, whose hair was falling out by the handfuls. who in their bloody mind would work on a SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT for three nights straight, even when there is no guarantee it is an assignment that will even be graded. They didn't do it just to graduate just to have a job, just to feed themselves. THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY LOVE ARCHITECTURE.

survival? being an architect student has had my sister IN DEPT for two years now and she has three years more to go. she could have graduated with an EASIER degree and could be making 50,000 a year. She walked away for that to pursue HAPPINESS.

"This urges them to acquire a higher one, by looking for trouble, and 'artificially' raise their own by lowering others (for example)."

Beating the shit out of people doesn't higher anyones self worth, most of us understand this. There are many people who have evolved past such animalistic behavior. They are very easy to spot. THEY DON'T HAVE ANGER OR VIOLENT ISSUES. Mankind is evolving. And those who are still trapped in this idea that beating the shit of someone proves anything, or going to find themselves out of place in society.

"please note that while our culture has evolved at an EXTREMELY fast rate, biological evolution is SO slow that our biological brain is still adapted, and wired to the time when we were 'cave-men', so to say... This is why we still have those ultimate survivalistic drives. We simply haven't evolved to be comfortable in this society... This, again, explains much phenomena such as violence, shyness, friendliness."

modern day life has ignored the emotional needs of a human being. people try to live like robots. performing the same meaningless tasks day in and day out. this causes stress. stress builds up over time. if the individual has not found an outlet to express their creativity or emotions, the stress will either kill them slow by severely lowering their mental and physical health. or the stress can blow out of proportion, causing depression, anxiety or anger problems.

modern.day.life. does.not.satisfy.the.needs.of.an.emotional.being. culture is not more evolved. it has degraded and de-evolved the value of our emotional needs.

humanity does not have to adapt to modern day life. modern day will change to meet OUR needs as more people wake up and realize, WE HAVE EMOTIONAL NEEDS that are more important than our survival. In fact, when people don't satisfy their emotional needs and only their survival - THEY QUESTION IF LIFE HAS ANY MEANING. and this makes apathetic towards death, including their own.

"Also: we don't have a totally free will. The genes are the blueprints of our bodies, and therefore, the blueprints of our brain. So somewhere, those genes have had an impact inside our brains as well."

blue prints. tendencies. do not dictate our choices. people are pathetic and will turn to anything to blame outside of themselves for the poor choices they have made.

in the past it was satan, today its genes. the new researches into the brain show us differently. your thoughts, your memories, your self identity, none of them are so permanent that YOU can not change it. you can choose to become a new person. the brain is capable of rewiring itself. people can and have changed. genes have given us the ability to choose who we want to be, not to dictate it.

"They have been raised in such a way to behave like they do. Their brains have been shaped in such a way that they behave like they do, and therefore their free will has been manipulated."

no one said free will was easy, or something you exercise the moment of birth. you give up your free will when you don't realize you have it. and you claim it when you do. children do not exercise free will like adults. their free will is put on hold, because biologically speaking, they are meant to be under the guidance of adults. but I don't care what religion someone was raised in, day in and day out. AT ANY MOMENT, they CAN stop believing.

and this moment normally happens in adulthood, when we have the personality to exercise free will. sound familiar? is this not how most atheists are born? AFTER childhood?

"NO-ONE has an absolute free will..."

you can choose to believe in anything. has not religion shown you this? you have choose to believe no one has absolute free will. and I have the free will to believe other wise.

you. can. believe. anything. and while people think this is dangerous because of religion. it is our ability to believe anything, that also gives us the ability to NOT BELIEVE. culture. religion. yes these things make it difficult. but they don't stop free will.

there are people who grow up in religious dogma. and they choose to believe other wise. and their version of why others choose to believe, is not brainwashing. but a fear to be different. and when fear is involved, you need to be careful to conclude they all believe without question.

in places where people are swinging guns, do you think they feel its safe to so publicly and openly admit - if what they believe is different? some would rather die than live a lie. but its true, most would rather live and lie.

Thanks for all the replies. Yea, in the title I said EVERYDAY life is useless...not life. I love life. So it may have sounded to you like I'm depressed or suicidal but I'm not. I'm just saying that nobody gets anywhere living the way most people do. All you do is work to pay off your bills. And by paying off yours bills you're basically paying to stay where you are, and to stay where you are you have to work to pay off bills...get it? I'd rather be homeless or live alone in the woods than this stupid routine (which to a certain extent I am and do). Like I said it all makes sense in my head but words fail me(like always). I think(hope) that you get where I'm coming from.

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Originally Posted by GestaltAlteration

Most of what I've said isn't even my real views-- it's what I perceive would remain if one became a true atheist.

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Ya, you're arguing with a position I'm not presenting, from a point of view you don't hold...why are you doing this?

I'm doing it in hopes of understanding it. It's one of those things I've never grasped and rarely heard admitted, but seems most logical given the absense of an intellegent creation.

As for your position. Sorry, I found it a bit confusing. :?

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Originally Posted by GestaltAlteration

I'm doing it in hopes of understanding it. It's one of those things I've never grasped and rarely heard admitted, but seems most logical given the absense of an intellegent creation.

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You mean it's logical to you that in a world view without a creator, daily life must be useless and unfulfilling? You seem to be saying that life is empty unless you're immortal and part of a story, on the basis that the only alternative you can understand is a mechanistic and lonely universe.

What I'm trying to point out that you seem not to see is that both those perspectives rest on the assumption that the voice in your head is very very very important, that it's what you are and all you are. To me, your wish for the voice in your head to come from somewhere special (God) and be going to somewhere special (Heaven) is a pitiable failure to recognize the beautiful, bittersweet things that we are, and the fascinating thing we're doing together (existence). You don't need a story about it to be fully engaged.

The point of life is to do what makes you happy. To overcome struggle to get it also. Some of you people are too fucking obsessed with how other people percieve you. You don't need money.

Shit, just by what I experienced this weekend, I figured out the purpose of life. I suggest you look a little closer.

@ mindwanderer & Gestalt:
I don't know whether you're gonna agree with me or not, but in this post I have made some points about happiness and fulfilment of intellectual needs (as I like to call it, in the same trend as my philosophy teacher, simply because it sounds so damn cool :)). You should at least read that little bit, 'cause I always thought that little bit of wisdom of his was very sensical.


Anyways... Back to the person who I really wrote this for:





Dear Juroara,

Please read the entire post and then criticise or reply, ‘cause I have a feeling that we do agree on a lot of points.



“our emotions are not primal.” “a look at human emotions will clearly show they are far advanced, and shit complicated than any other living thing on earth.”

Wrong… at least most of our emotions aren’t primal. Fear, anger, lust, even compassion and sympathy can all be seen in animal species (to some degree, at least. You should look up the Dutch primatologist and psychologist Frans de Waal (it’s the only one I can think of right now). He has some interesting and funny quotes also ^^).
It just happens to be that our brain is far more advanced than the other animals. We can actively experience these emotions (i.e. be conscious about them), we can think about them, which may actually ‘blow up’ this experience. Indeed: we as humans, having acquired the ratio and the judgement to do so, can attach value to these emotions. But the fact that we can actively experience them and value them doesn’t mean they are ‘far advanced’ than those of dogs. It just means our human brains are far advanced.

Let’s, for example, just look at the following simple example from an evolutionary standpoint, mmkay? Fear… What do you think fear does? It isn’t fun at all, so why then do we have it? Why do apes have it? Why does my dog cower away when he’s doing something bad and I come in to slap his nose? It must’ve been of evolutionary importance for an animal to have fear. ‘cause If not, we wouldn’t have had it, right? It would’ve been filtered out by natural selection (just think about it… what if fear actually produced a positive feeling? We would all jump in front of cars and die…)
So… back to my dog… Why does he cower away in fear? Simple: He’s protecting himself. Fear is simply a sort of a program to keep us away from harm, isn’t it? When fear kicks in, your heart pumps the blood ‘round faster, you start to breathe more quickly, and you get an adrenalin rush, you’ll have tunnel vision. And why is that? To ensure survival, of course. If you’ve ever been into a fight or a life-threatening situation, you’ll know. The adrenalin makes you faster, stronger, it actually can block out pain for a bit, the tunnel vision will make you focus on one thing only: to either get away, or to slap that mofo right across the face, or to argue with the doctors that have just diagnosed you with some scary lethal disease, JUST so you could survive, just so you could walk away again, unscathed, and more importantly: ALIVE.
Fear in a dog is fundamentally the same as fear in humans. The only difference is that we can think about it, that we can really experience it.

Now, as for happiness and sadness: I don’t know very much about them, as I’m sadly not that well-read on sociobiology (which I do hope to do someday, when I’m not so busy with school anymore), but my point still stands: though everybody wants a good life, we still have those little leftover brain parts up there which we share with apes, with lizards, even with rats. This evolutionary inheritance greatly .

Then again: when we aren’t happy, what do we call it (a rather radical term)? Depression. What’s the

a look at human emotions will clearly show they are far advanced, and shit complicated than any other living thing on earth. it is attending to our emotional needs that gives us the most pleasure, the most happiness, the most peace on earth. when I said we were emotional beings, I am saying we have an EMOTIONAL NEED that is not about - survival. We have an emotional desire to find happiness. Its our idea of what happiness is it what will ultimately drive your life. Happiness however is not survival, you will not drop dead if you are not happy.

“Our drive for happiness is what sets us apart from animals. We've even go so far as to manipulate the temperature in our homes should the temperature outside make us unhappy.”


First of all: what is happiness, really? There are loads of aspects to this one, but here’s the most fundamental one (just think about it): Isn’t happiness just a fulfilment of a need? A positive feeling when something positive has happened?
I’ve been with a girl once who got totally happy when she ate something wonderful. Her need was to eat something. And as a result the entire room lit up. When my dog really needs to pee and go for a walk, he’ll come up to us and stand over the newspaper just to get us to do it. When we then do, or when we even just say it: ‘wanna go for a walk?’, he gets really jumpy and runs over the where his leash is. Another thing is when we come home from a long day of school or work, the dog comes running up to us wagging his tail, jumping up to you.
Have you ever been in a zoo? Have you ever seen monkeys play? Isn’t that bonding? Don’t they make lasting friendships then? Don’t you think they’re happy, then?
When you give starving children in Africa (or wherever) food, don’t they get happy?
Happiness is just a fulfilment of a need, whether it is going for a walk or even just seeing their owners (in dogs), or eating a nice meal or making the room adjust to just the right temperature (in man), or even the freedom that birds get when released from their cage.
Aren’t we really more like animals than we’d like to admit?

“of course, you don't got a job you don't have a home, you don't have food, you can starve right? but no one drops dead either when they retire.”

Do you stop getting money when you retire? Nope… Therefore the survival aspect isn’t really a problem there, anymore.

and many look forward to early retirement. people work hard, to transcend the need of working. to do the activities they find more meaningful in life. of course that doesn't always work does it? sometimes its just feels like all our hard work goes down the drain and we can never escape a shitty job. but certainly our real desire for working hard IS TO TRANSCEND WORK.

Again: you won’t have any survival problems after retirement. Sure, you might get less money than before (which is why people often have to do with less after they retire, which is one of the reasons why some of those people actually feel less happy than before). And also (and I’m gonna touch on this a bit later, too, when you talk about your sister): happiness is fulfilment of need, be it primal or intellectual. We humans have evolved to largely become intellectual beings, and therefore we will constantly crave not only for fulfilment of primal desires, but also of intellectual ones. This is why we travel, this is why we read books. And if we don’t get that brain-stimulation from shitty jobs, then isn’t it pretty obvious why we want to get out of office?

“you can deduce anything and find any arbitrary meaning.”

Now, here I have to disagree. When you conclude that our brain and behaviours aren’t shaped in at least a bit of a natural selective way, then you must also conclude that our brain is radically different than those of animals. Sure, we have some huge lobes up there, but the reptilian brain is still there! All the instincts, emotions, social principles we’ve had since whenever can be traced back to all kinds of pieces of grey matter, and further back to even the animals of which they were once a part of also. In fact: the hugeness of our brain has (mostly) just contributed to our intelligence: our processing of information, its storage, and other complex stuff such as thinking. It hasn’t changed anything about the fundaments of which they were ‘built’, namely the regions where hormonal, emotional and instinctive responses were being regulated. Now if you go and research this stuff, like behaviour in driving and social dynamics, then you can actually trace the emotions and instincts back to parts of your brain, and you can even compare them to shockingly similar behaviours in animals, from whence these genetic inheritances actually came from.
Now if we go on from there: why do the animals show this behaviour? It is to gain status, to display a ritual for a woman, to fight off predators, or simply to run away from them, maybe. In short: to survive (/reproduce).
I’m not saying at all that this is the overruling system in our brain, I’m saying that this is the fundament, and that therefore the fundament of our behaviour, whether conscious of it or not, is this instinctual thing. Therefore, whatever we do, somewhere natural selection has its effect.
Have you ever had a bad feeling of something, but didn’t have any kind of reason for it? Haven’t you once felt that ‘it just feels wrong’? Of course you have. Who hasn’t? And there you have it: whether you like it or not, reason is certainly not always the overruling principle in our brain.

“THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY LOVE ARCHITECTURE.”

Yes, the human brain is amazing… I’ve said that already. We have evolved, and because we’re so far up the evolutionary ladder of intelligence we have transcended our primal brain and grown rather huge lumps of this cool brain-matter which, of course, opens a lot of possibilities. One of them is art, another is intelligence, another one is justice, another one is choice and freedom, and yet another one is happiness. But this all doesn’t make our brain any less animal. We still have an animalistic brain, one which has come about through natural selection and which is at least partially effected by genetics and evolution.

“survival? being an architect student has had my sister IN DEPT for two years now and she has three years more to go. she could have graduated with an EASIER degree and could be making 50,000 a year. She walked away for that to pursue HAPPINESS.”

I like in particular one of Aristotle’s ideas, and I will use one of his ideas to explain mine. Aristotle argued that there are three kinds of ‘souls’: the vegetative soul (where primal desires and instincts houses), the animal soul (where experience and consciousness houses), and the ratio (where (you’ve guessed it:) the ratio houses), and since happiness is an emotion that occurs when a need is fulfilled, we should categorise this as an animal thing. The thing, however, is that it is linked to a need (a vegetative thing). However, we humans have an extra soul: the ratio. Intelligence and abstract thought, and THIS is where our needs can separate from those of animals. We may get happy when we get a new flat screen TV or a nice sandwich, but thanks to our ratio, we also have an intellectual need. A need that is not based on primal desires, but on reason, on our personality. And THAT is where the desire to become an architect comes from, and where the obvious satisfaction that comes with learning how to be one comes from.

“Beating the shit out of people doesn't higher anyones self worth, most of us understand this. There are many people who have evolved past such animalistic behavior. They are very easy to spot. THEY DON'T HAVE ANGER OR VIOLENT ISSUES. Mankind is evolving. And those who are still trapped in this idea that beating the shit of someone proves anything, or going to find themselves out of place in society.”

Oh, but it does. When someone insults you, they’ve lowered your self-value and raised their own. When you kick them in the nuts real good, and have him lying on the ground, squirming and screaming, won’t you feel like ‘take that, for trying to mess with me’. Doesn’t it feel like you’ve suddenly become king of the hill again?
And I’m not saying that you should do that. It’s just something that’s been floating around a lot in psychology and that it’s very true also. Haven’t you noticed that people who are totally aggressive (not necessarily in a violent, physical way) always have a huge amount of followers? That’s because their value has risen to such a high point: they stand above the regular people because of the respect they command. I and my friend have been attacked multiple times also, for no good reason, I might add, other than I was friends with someone who had anger issues. They lowered his value by doing that, and raised their own, and I always saw that those persons who did this kind of stuff actually were the leaders of the ‘gang’ they were with. Is that coincidence?
Also: I’m not saying they have anger or violent issues, I’m just saying this is most of the times the cause that they do this stuff…
Luckily, not everyone’s like that, but we can’t deny that everyone’s an angel here on earth. It’s true that most people have better morals and intelligence to do that, but there will always be people on which this sort of stuff works.
Now, I don’t know whether you still don’t agree with me, but if you don’t: please tell me then why there are so much fights, and why people fight.

“modern day life has ignored the emotional needs of a human being. people try to live like robots. performing the same meaningless tasks day in and day out. this causes stress. stress builds up over time. if the individual has not found an outlet to express their creativity or emotions, the stress will either kill them slow by severely lowering their mental and physical health. or the stress can blow out of proportion, causing depression, anxiety or anger problems.”


OK… True for the most part, but I’m voting pro on the separation of ‘stress’. You see, stress actually is made up out of two parts: distress and eustress… Distress being the bad kind, the one you talk about, and eustress being the good variant (which actually is very much like happiness… the positive feeling of fulfilment). Have you ever had to write a paper and it was so hard and stressful, and then you’ve finished it, with the result being better than you could’ve ever imagined? Haven’t you played an important stressful soccer game once and just like that scored the winning goal? Doesn’t that stressful feeling turn around completely into happiness? Into eustress? Yes it does.
Therefore: stress doesn’t necessarily have to lead to depression every time. But for the most part I agree.
To counter your argument: go back to the fulfilment of intellectual needs. We’re humans. We have more intellectual desires, so we aren’t satisfied with getting a bone each time we do something good, or the same walking route time and time again, just to bring up the dog-metaphor again.

“modern.day.life. does.not.satisfy.the.needs.of.an.emotional.being. culture is not more evolved. it has degraded and de-evolved the value of our emotional needs.”

I agree, although it depends, really, with what work you do. Actors have a pretty varied life, having a different katharsis each time they act, so they’ll have a more intellectually satisfied, happy life than a person who has to dial phone numbers and try to sell stuff to people day in day out, getting mostly the same answers of ‘no, I don’t wanna buy your stuff!’.
And THIS, again, is why your sister has wisely chosen to become an architect instead of phone-lady. Intellectual happiness.

“humanity does not have to adapt to modern day life. modern day will change to meet OUR needs as more people wake up and realize, WE HAVE EMOTIONAL NEEDS that are more important than our survival.”

Okay, I’m sorry about the following, but I’ve explained wrongly that our brains haven’t evolved yet to live in this society. It doesn’t really mattered, as it was supposed to be part of the argument about people wanting to raise their value. No matter.
As you’ve already noticed about three times or so: I agree with your statement here.

“In fact, when people don't satisfy their emotional needs and only their survival - THEY QUESTION IF LIFE HAS ANY MEANING.”

Why wouldn’t someone who has satisfied his emotional needs question if life has any meaning? The only thing that would be different is that he’d feel good, whilst the other wouldn’t. I’m emotionally satisfied, and even I sometimes question whether life has meaning.

“and this makes apathetic towards death, including their own.”

WRONG. I’ve questioned it… Hell, I’ve concluded that there is NO meaning to life whatsoever, but that doesn’t make me apathetic towards death. Hell no, I like my life, I wouldn’t want to die for a million bucks.
As for the survivalists-only: That’s not entirely true either. Remember how we’re programmed to survive? How it’s very hard without a hugely severe depression to commit suicide? That’s because we NEVER are apathetic towards death. Everybody has the natural, biological, fundamental need to live.

“blue prints. tendencies. do not dictate our choices. people are pathetic and will turn to anything to blame outside of themselves for the poor choices they have made.”

Listen now: I’m not saying blue prints and tendencies totally dictate our choices, but they do make us urge towards something. We could totally do something that’d be out of our normal thinking pattern, but it wouldn’t feel right. You’d have to rewire yourself. If someone is afraid of the dark (personality gone wrong), that person couldn’t just go ‘ok, so let’s just go out in the dark’. It’s impossible. It’d need some serious rewiring (like a psychiatrist), or even if it’s encouragement… Just ‘okay, you can do it, you’re a big, strong person’ can do the trick. ‘cause that’s changing the normal personality into someone that CAN go into the dark.
Also: you’re rather pessimistic, aren’t you? ‘people are pathetic’? :P

“in the past it was satan, today its genes. the new researches into the brain show us differently. your thoughts, your memories, your self identity, none of them are so permanent that YOU can not change it.”

Totally correct… But that doesn’t mean that you aren’t urged to do something. Like the person in the dark: you do have free will, but not an absolute free will, as your subconscious also does stuff to you. The same counts for your genes and your upbringing and stuff. Could you just kill a person? I don’t think so… At least I hope so… ‘cause if that’s not the case, then I’m conversing with a maniac.

“you can choose to become a new person. the brain is capable of rewiring itself. people can and have changed. genes have given us the ability to choose who we want to be, not to dictate it.”

I agree… But until you’re rewired, you’ll always have a tendency to do stuff…

“no one said free will was easy,”

Amen to that!

“or something you exercise the moment of birth. you give up your free will when you don't realize you have it. and you claim it when you do. children do not exercise free will like adults. their free will is put on hold, because biologically speaking, they are meant to be under the guidance of adults.”

Agreed…

“but I don't care what religion someone was raised in, day in and day out.” …
“AT ANY MOMENT, they CAN stop believing.” … “you can choose to believe in anything.” …“has not religion shown you this?”

Yeah… You can believe anything… Then how do you explain the same fundies that you just took as an example? Tell them to ‘just believe god does NOT exist’. And they won’t… They can’t… Their mind has been shaped into believing some invisible friend is real, and their mind will fight against it at all costs. Give them concrete evidence that evolution is real, that the world is billions of years old, that it’s a thousand times more logical to believe in not, than to believe in God. They, if they are indoctrinated correctly or actually have a solid base for belief (or so they themselves believe), will not stop believing that easily. You’ll have to seriously rewire their brains if you want them to get off of their religious train of thought.
In fact: I’m ordering you now to believe in something completely ridiculous. Pink bunnies are hopping in your garden eating cheesecakes with little dinosaurs on top. Believe it. With. Conviction. You won’t be able to, and you never will. At least I hope so, ‘cause else I’m conversing with an idiot :P

“culture. religion. yes these things make it difficult. but they don't stop free will.”

That was EXACTLY what I was saying.
I’m not saying we don’t have free will. I’m saying we don’t have an absolute free will. We can choose to do anything. Eat worms, believe in Scientology, hell, we can even blow our brains out with a rifle, but that doesn’t mean that this is something we can ‘just choose’ to do. Anyone normal will have the natural urge to NOT do all these things, to be detested and horrified by all these things. Even when you’re ready to bite the bullet yourself, your mind WILL fight against it at all costs. That’s why it is so hard to commit suicide, and why no one who doesn’t have a serious mental affliction such as depression would ‘just’ do it like that.
Our mind has been shaped, both by evolution, as well as (more prominently, since we’re humans) culture, society, how we were raised, religious indoctrination, our experiences etc., to form our personalities. And the set of ‘rules’ we’ve set up for ourselves through this, albeit unconsciously, will ALWAYS determine how you urge to do stuff. Sure, you can start smoking, but doesn’t that just feel wrong? THAT’S your mind fighting your free will.

If we would have an absolute free will, this wouldn’t be the case… And this was what I argued. I think that we agree on this subject, but that you’ve just misunderstood the terms that I’ve used ^^. Oh, gotta love semantics :P.


Cheers and peace! And lots of love and purpose!

-CD


P.S. I must say I really like this conversation with you, Juroara… You’ve really got me thinking. I guess I’ll have to discuss stuff more often, my mind feels great…
I am a bit tired, though XD

It's simple, really. If you think life is useless, it is.

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Originally Posted by skysaw

It's simple, really. If you think life is useless, it is.

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Pretty much ^^

Doesn't mean it isn't fun, though :P

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Originally Posted by CryoDragoon

So: NO-ONE has an absolute free will... Not even the nihilist of the child, the Übermensch, who has de-attached herself from the bonds of religion and culture, and who 'just accepts things as they are', simply because she would still have genes, she would still have experiences to shape their thinking process, and she would still be biological machines that'd be like any other animal on this planet: a survivalist...

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I agree with everything you say.. but, thats only for animals. Humans however, have reached a new purpose of existence. And our purpose of existence, imo, is to realize our dreams irl.

Just living your life for fun, friends, family, is useless in the end. If you have the potential to change this world, why not? And imo, every human has the potential, they just think they don't.

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Originally Posted by mindwanderer

People will try their hardest at school so they can get decent grades, go to University and then get a well paying job. You get that job so you can pay for the house that you sleep in. Though you have 40 if not more hours of work a week anyways. So the only time you have left is spent sleeping or paying bills. All this so you can go on working and sleeping in your house! It gets you nowhere and is soo frustrating. Just work till you die? I would rather spend life on the streets than the life that most people live. All that working gets you is the "luxury" of sleeping in a city. The only way to be able to live in the city is to work your life away. You don't get anything out of it! It all makes sense in my head but when I try to get it out it's all jumbled and doesn't make sense. Anyways maybe I'll make a follow up post and try to collect my thoughts. I hope you all get the idea I'm trying to make.

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I failed at school, have a HUGE learning disability that was caught in grade 6, i'm 23 years old and spent 2 years after alittle college at a learning center...my english is almost grade 10 worthy, although it was good because i could never use commas or periods, now i can but it's not perfect.

I failed being good around girls, hell even now. But i can talk to them now unlike before. It's more knowing what to say then anything at this point, they love my offline sense of humor and my character. A guy, sure! i spent most of my life around guys. Girls you can't talk like a guy to them.

I failed after school. I barely get over minimum wage, the jobs ok but not something i love. 2 years ago i quit a job i had for 3 years being a janitor...absolutly hated it. Kept it because i do not like interviews, nor can i sell myself to save my life.

I fail at doing things i wanna do, and get told i do things i don't wanna do because that's being "responsible", and you got to pay the bills nomatter what. Most things i wanna do i decide not to do them, it's a habbit. I want to get into a trade just so i can get alot of money but that requires doing something. I used to wanna get into the Army, but that failed as my knee injury did not heal correctly. I wanted to be a navy guy...serve my country, a girl in every port, travel the world. What's not to love? but i got over that.

I am failing at life, and most days i question if "is this all life has to offer???" No, i'm not a full out depressed guy who wants to commit suicide. Been there, tried that. I'm about half and half and getting used to knowing i'm always going to be a failure, so i just live with it and try and move on. I usually don't talk about my life, i hate when people feel sorry for you, and hate drama.



I lately have been talking about why do women get pregnant REALLY young? seems like it's a trend. Not fair for the kid to barely get by, you need to have a career before you should even consider thinking of starting a family.

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Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba

I agree with everything you say.. but, thats only for animals. Humans however, have reached a new purpose of existence. And our purpose of existence, imo, is to realize our dreams irl.

Just living your life for fun, friends, family, is useless in the end. If you have the potential to change this world, why not? And imo, every human has the potential, they just think they don't.

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Well... Isn't the only purpose of realising our dreams just to become happy? Even if it's a 'calling' to do stuff in politics, you'll probably have an urge to make a positive difference in people's lives, you want the world to become a better place, and when you get round to actually doing that, then isn't that where you get your happiness from? Isn't that how you would fulfil your emotional and intellectual needs?

When I help a sad person to cheer up, I automatically feel like I've done something important, and thus I feel happy... Isn't that with all altruistic behavior? Doesn't it feel good to help someone? Even if it's just giving a few bucks to a homeless person? Or to charity? We feel like we've done something important to another person, which makes us feel better for and about ourselves.

That, or I'm just incredibly selfish ^^


And I do agree with you about the political part: everybody has the ability to make a difference. This is something I've been thinking about for a while now: everybody DOES make a difference one way or another.
A world without you would NOT be the same, simply because you've already left an impression on at least someone. You could've taught him a valuable life lesson (like now... I'm forming my opinions by the means of discussing stuff with you guys), be it conciously or not, you could've just cheered the person up. Whatever it is: you've made an impression in some way or another, and you will continue to do so until your death (or, if you're lucky... even until after your death).

So... Nobodies life is without meaning, and you can make yourself live your life in such a way that you create a purpose for yourself, but is there really a purpose of life? of human life? I don't really think there is one.

So... I guess I only partially agree :P


Bye!

-CD