Thread: Why do we struggle to survive?

Human beings are creatures that live inside stories.
We invent our own purposes.

Those who have failed to invent purposes for themselves commit suicide. That's often because they entertain thoughts like, "No one wants me" or, "I'm good for nothing" or, "Life sucks, there's no reason to be here". There's no story for them. They die.

Those who are alive held on to something that has meaning to them, whether it's friendships, love for a significant other, self improvement, heaven, sexual relations, or a personal life-quest. The list goes on, surely, but the idea is there. No other animal needs to do this to survive effectively.

What do you survive for?

To experience that which I exist within, and to grow from it.

This is likely why religions were invented. They give meaning and answers to these unanswerable kind of questions.

As for what I survive for, well ... I enjoy being alive. Sure, shitty things can happen, but all the shitty things that've happened don't weigh much compared to the years-upon-years of things that I've enjoyed.

Originally Posted by Dreams4free

...What do you survive for?

To experience (and to have a damn good time doing it).

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

To experience (and to have a damn good time doing it).

You survive just to experience? We are just mindless drones that walk around having sex and eating, as a means to eating more food and having more sex. That is very uninteresting to me, I hope that is not the case. I feel more like a chimp than ever before with that philosophy.

For a start your premise is wrong; we take pleasure from many things not biologicaly beneficial. For example; chocolate. And pop music.

I have come to the same conclusion as the others in this thread: there is no meaning inherent in the universe. The only meaning is that which you make for yourself; that is, experience.

Originally Posted by Dreams4free

You survive just to experience? We are just mindless drones that walk around having sex and eating, as a means to eating more food and having more sex. That is very uninteresting to me, I hope that is not the case. I feel more like a chimp than ever before with that philosophy.

Not quite sure if you understood me. I live to experience 'life', and by 'life' I mean the things that interest me - the things that I find worth surviving for, and the things that I anticipate experiencing. I'm not talking about the mechanical (eating, sleeping, shitting). I'm talking about the things that I've grown to covet (art, music, love, humor, family, etc.). Those are the things that I live to experience, and if you think it's all very uninteresting, I'd love to hear what interests you enough to keep on moving...

Originally Posted by Dreams4free

We are just mindless drones

Speak for yourself. Being self aware and able to internalize language for complex thought processes excludes us from being classed as automatons.

And Xei, music (and humor) does happen to be beneficial to human survival. We have different psychological needs to fulfill than the other members of the animal kingdom.

Originally Posted by Xei

For a start your premise is wrong; we take pleasure from many things not biologicaly beneficial. For example; chocolate. And pop music.

I have come to the same conclusion as the others in this thread: there is no meaning inherent in the universe. The only meaning is that which you make for yourself; that is, experience.

Your examples are very biologically beneficial. Chocolate is simple, it has nutrients that your body needs like protein and carbohydrates, necessary for a healthy body. Music on the other hand may not seem so apparent but when analytically broken down with respect to survival quickly shows relevance. Music is a fundamentally a primitive form of communication that derives from expression of one's mentality on any "x" subject. When you mention music, you specifically mentioned popular music as a genre. Popular music has it's name generally because it is the "now" expression of life. It's the commonly held expression of life in of itself on any subject. Are you surprised that most music comprises of love song's, drugs, breaking the law, etc.... All of these thing's derive from a ancestry of survival.

Many of us would die without language. Caveman times, when people needed to alert another fellow caveman that a panther was going to maul his ass. We humans quickly understood that in order to hunt efficiently we needed a way to communicate.

So a quick (Fundamental) chart:

{ Music derives from Language -> Language derives from Survival }

I pretty much broke down already how Music is a form of expression of self namely through instruments, voice. There by being a tool of communication, i.e language. How is language linked to survival!?!?!? Because it all started with hunting and desperate ways of alerting other fellow cavemen of survival needs. Food...Water...Me want to have sex with you. On and on and on. What I stated clearly is true, I haven't asked you to challenge it. Fundamentally survival is existence. When we don't survive, we don't exist. We thrive on existence.. Those who understand that use this knowledge to manipulate other people. A universe, heaven namely, is the extrema of existence. It is the extrema of existence because it is ultimate survival without bound. Things that bring us closest to a extrema of existence are the purest, greatest feelings. If we have no purpose other then just to survive for the sake of surviving, experiencing for the sake of experiencing, what is our end. Sure I enjoy many seconds of life, but at the end of the day I am not satisfied with the fact that many other people don't get to live like us. They don't get a environment where they can succeed or experience the things that we do. Imagine going to a poor African village and telling them that the reason why they thrive to live is to live. The reason they desire existence so desperately is to just to wither out and die after a while knowing that life had just been a mission to dieing. That's why you have to tell them that their is a God.. just hang in there. The fact that I live to just experience and interact with a environment is saying that ultimately I am a lab rat. I am created just to behave on what I see...hear...touch etc...
I exist just to act upon the perception of a setting and respond to it in a manner. Existentialism is basically what you all defined. We have turned life into a perception of ones will to live. The less inclined one feels to exist, the more inward he turns to his fundamental purpose. It is a self refuting concept that explains nothing. Uselessness is the mentality the one gets when a inward turning has no solution. To have no use is fundamentally the ideology of having no change in respect with the means to a end...
If you are working on a boat, and a friend helps you, he is useful of course. If you are working on a boat, and a friend messes up, causing you to restart would be useful in a negative respect. Say you are working on a boat and a paralyzed person comes over that literally can't have a positive or negative change on the construction of your boat. He would be useless of course.
I gave that example just to eliminate the ambiguity of the meaning of useful. Some might think that useful only means having a positive value, and it's clearly not the case if you just compare useful in a negative respect. I.e... John was helpful in screwing up the boat. Useful is like a "x" that can be applied with respect to any means.


What am I getting at? I am trying to explain that living for the moment is a directly proportional slope. When you get old and realize that you approach death and life becomes a shit hole. Puking your guts out all day if you have cancer, realizing that you are like a little child that needs to be watched. Losing all your facilities of the mind that you would have otherwise taking for granted. Being a Existentialist may feel great on a individual level when you are young and "free". My dad is pretty much a existentialist when he tried to give me advice by saying "Whenever you do something, make sure it makes sense to YOU". Basically, that night he went out to a bar instead of coming home when my mom was having friends over. Because it made sense to him to ignore her and just have a beer. He told her that he would be home much longer but just decided to blow her off and chill. Of course they got divorced and that's how existentialism worked in a marriage.

So what now. Your old, living for the moment sucks, all you have are memories that you can hardly recall anymore of feeling alive. YOU WANT TO FEEL ALIVE AGAIN. you want to feel at the extrema of existence. Sex..drugs..alcohol... you name it. But you just can't get no satisfaction no more. So you start turning inward and asking what can I do now that I realize existing isn't as great as it used to be. You talk to people and they tell you that soon you will go to heaven.... What else are you going to do but believe it. You realize that shit sucks now and someone tells you that you can feel at the extrema of existence forever, it is very easy to pursue that ideology. Life is very unfulfillable at that age, it makes more sense to OD on drugs and alcohol and go out with a bang, rather than just dying in your sleep with a existentialist mentality.

So there are the cycles of that philosophy. An old rock star that falls in love with Jesus. Anyone else?

Originally Posted by Invader

Speak for yourself. Being self aware and able to internalize language for complex thought processes excludes us from being classed as automatons.

You realize that when you say "complex thought processes" are just impulses of neurons that register anatomically at random. I hate to tell you this but, we no different than automatons. We think independently of our creator, namely because ultimately we don't need find the exigency to act depend of our creator. That being said, I can simplify any thought to a general scale of 1 nature. Satisfaction. All we think about is satisfaction as a whole. Our Philosophical queries are just obstacles of truth that leads to our satisfaction.
Human's are machines. 1. Define reason to live. 2. live through defined reason. After we decide for ourselves what are underlying and fundamental style of living will be, we act upon it. Just like we give machines a operand, and they execute it. They don't question why they were given the operand, they just commit to it. When are we actually questioning survival, it's not that survival is the operand. It's that we are machines that want to figure out specifics so we can commit to them and stop questioning. Questioning in of itself is a rather tedious task in juxtaposition to viable truth. It would be much easier for us to ultimately know our purpose and commit to it. When a machine does not understand it's operand, it won't commit to it. Like a programming flaw that is just not executed.


So who or what is going fix our programing flaws? Ourselves? Generally that is what it comes down to. That after that we can live like robots with our select philosophy. Whenever ambiguity is arisen, we respond like robots and imminently asses it.

"complex thought processes" are just impulses of neurons that register anatomically at random.

Nothing about our neural functions are random. Also, much of what you said does apply to the common animal. Again, though, we are self aware, and that changes everything. We still don't know what allows us to be this way, and we therefor cannot conclude that this entire "ghost in the machine" phenomenon is derived purely from neural functions. I'm not saying it's unlikely or impossible for that to be the case, but that we cannot know at this time.

If I say I'm here to create positive experiences, I'm going to do just that. And why not? We derive enjoyment from more than just our most base, animalistic instincts, and that too separates us from the rest of the biological machines. The enjoyment I speak of is of "the mind", so to speak, being that I'm not referring to physical pleasures sought after by every organism in the name of survival.

Look, when it comes down to it this is what it is:

Question: What do you survive for?
Rephrased: What is the purpose for life?

Answer:




End.

There's no answer. There's nothing, so you can input anything you want. If this bothers you, then you're weak.

The reason I say this, is because you seem to be challenging people's inputs over silly things.

Originally Posted by Dreams4free

Your examples are very biologically beneficial. Chocolate is simple, it has nutrients that your body needs like protein and carbohydrates, necessary for a healthy body. Music on the other hand may not seem so apparent but when analytically broken down with respect to survival quickly shows relevance. Music is a fundamentally a primitive form of communication that derives from expression of one's mentality on any "x" subject. When you mention music, you specifically mentioned popular music as a genre. Popular music has it's name generally because it is the "now" expression of life. It's the commonly held expression of life in of itself on any subject. Are you surprised that most music comprises of love song's, drugs, breaking the law, etc.... All of these thing's derive from a ancestry of survival.

Whether or not most choices depend on survival or not does not mean that they're all beneficial. There's no use arguing that chocolate is healthy; there are far more healthy foods that are more nutritious.

Originally Posted by Dreams4free

You realize that when you say "complex thought processes" are just impulses of neurons that register anatomically at random. I hate to tell you this but, we no different than automatons. We think independently of our creator, namely because ultimately we don't need find the exigency to act depend of our creator.

We are very different from automatons. For one thing, humans do not respond logically to every given situation. Humans act under the influence of consciousness, which is non-linear. Robots function via causality and linear programming.

And if we think independently of our creator - what is it?

They don't get a environment where they can succeed or experience the things that we do. Imagine going to a poor African village and telling them that the reason why they thrive to live is to live. The reason they desire existence so desperately is to just to wither out and die after a while knowing that life had just been a mission to dieing. That's why you have to tell them that their is a God.. just hang in there. The fact that I live to just experience and interact with a environment is saying that ultimately I am a lab rat. I am created just to behave on what I see...hear...touch etc...

I'm not quite sure where you're going with this.

You can't just go somewhere and tell someone else why they struggle to survive; why they choose to keep going; what motivates them. People are different. You liken us to automatons, but automatons do not fall subject to things like (even leaving religion out of it) misinterpretation; emotion; varying degrees of psychological development; 'life-changing experiences'; spontaneity, etc.

You say you strive for a "0", which is ultimately a rehash of the concept of "Life having no absolute meaning" (If I understand your stance correctly). Objectively, that is true. But when someone says they exist to "experience, and have a damn good time while doing it" (as I did), it is not an objective answer. Were that true, you wouldn't have misinterpreted what I meant. What I meant was, I struggle to live to continue experiencing the things that I enjoy. Of course, one can turn minimalist to that declaration and say "oh, well whatever you enjoy is just a byproduct of the human struggle to survive", and to that, I say "...so what?" It is that kind of reductionism that works to only remove any and all subjectivity from the human experience (which, yes, would make us nothing but automatons).

The human psyche is infinitely complex. We have motivations for doing even the simplest things that other people, who may do the exact same things, could not fathom. Variables change, even though the outcomes may be the same. The example you used about your dad ignoring your mom is not indicative of all who live to "experience", especially when the word itself often warrants definition.

I struggle to experience the things in life that I find interesting. I struggle to experience because I have no desire to die and stop this rather enjoyable life that I have. I love to experience helping people just as much as I enjoy doing things that entertain me. I love new and unusual things. I love learning about the world. I want to skydive. I want to fly into space. I want to see my daughter grow up to be a smart and contented adult. I still want my damn motorcycle...

As an agnostic, I don't need the promise of heaven to be my motivation to survive, and unless you've done extensive, hands-on research with natives of every third-world countrie, you can't really say that 'Heaven' is their driving force, either.

There is no "objective" reason to why we survive. In fact, some people get to a point where they don't even care about whether they, or others, survive. I hope you're not posing the question to find some quintessential answer, or to tell others that the reason they continue to survive is somehow illusory - because subjectivity is a very human trait. It is subject to fallibility, yes (as we are imperfect beings), but it is not something that one should be afraid of, or try to rid oneself of...which kind of seems to be what your position proposes.

Your examples are very biologically beneficial. Chocolate is simple, it has nutrients that your body needs like protein and carbohydrates, necessary for a healthy body. Music on the other hand may not seem so apparent but when analytically broken down with respect to survival quickly shows relevance. Music is a fundamentally a primitive form of communication that derives from expression of one's mentality on any "x" subject. When you mention music, you specifically mentioned popular music as a genre. Popular music has it's name generally because it is the "now" expression of life. It's the commonly held expression of life in of itself on any subject. Are you surprised that most music comprises of love song's, drugs, breaking the law, etc.... All of these thing's derive from a ancestry of survival.

Balls.

First off, many populations of humans had not tasted chocolate until about a century ago. When they did, they already liked it. Natural selection was not involved at all.

Chocolate in excess is obviously not biologically beneficial. And for better examples, look at Big Macs. Many people would rather eat a Big Mac than anything else, yet in any quantity they are very detrimental to health.

Compare with vegetables, which are very good for us, yet many people don't like.

All these factors make it impossible for appreciation of taste to be based solely upon survival.

Another general example: heroin.

And nobody knows why we have evolved to appreciate melodies.

The idea that every single experience we enjoy we do so because of survival is absolutely untenable.

Originally Posted by Xei

Another general example: heroin.

That's a damned good point. I know plenty of people (some of them close friends) who struggle with drugs. They have become addicted to them to the point where they are consciously aware that the drugs are slowly killing them, but they are unable to stop. Some of which are the type that will actually say "Man, I really need to stop doing this shit," minutes before getting their fix.

To the OP, please explain how such addiction comes from an adherence to personal survival? And not only an addiction to narcotics, but to adrenaline as well. If someone makes a profession out of breaking land-speed records, BASE jumping, bull riding, drag racing, etc. how, exactly are those indicative of 'doing only what is detrimental for one's survival'? If you ask me, it shows a cognizant awareness of "I might very well die if I do this, but DAMN it's going to be so much fun, so I've got to try it."

Originally Posted by Xei

Balls.

First off, many populations of humans had not tasted chocolate until about a century ago. When they did, they already liked it. Natural selection was not involved at all.

Chocolate in excess is obviously not biologically beneficial. And for better examples, look at Big Macs. Many people would rather eat a Big Mac than anything else, yet in any quantity they are very detrimental to health.

Compare with vegetables, which are very good for us, yet many people don't like.

All these factors make it impossible for appreciation of taste to be based solely upon survival.

Another general example: heroin.

And nobody knows why we have evolved to appreciate melodies.

The idea that every single experience we enjoy we do so because of survival is absolutely untenable.

"All these factors make it impossible for appreciation of taste to be based solely upon survival."

I don't remember mentioning that appreciation of taste was key to survival. I do remember mentioning chocolate having sources of nutrients that help our body survive. The fact of the matter is that when you don't give your kid a lot of vegetables and rather pizza and other shit all the time, his taste buds just get used to it. Even a big mac has plenty of good nutrients in it, but not in excess. That is still a invalid arguement.

Heroin is a pain killer. Are you really arguing that Heroin has no correlation with survival. It has so many biological effects upon the body that create a satisfied feeling. It's mainly associated with tolerance of pain and anti-anxiety... Of course in the long turn it may have harmful effects, but on a fundamental immediate use, it is a strong reliever.
Therefore their are many physicological benefits from immediate use that show a correlation one way, or another.

Originally Posted by really

We are very different from automatons. For one thing, humans do not respond logically to every given situation. Humans act under the influence of consciousness, which is non-linear. Robots function via causality and linear programming.

And if we think independently of our creator - what is it?

We defiantly responded logically to every situation. Everything that we think of is logical to ourselves as a individual. How is consciousness non-linear? Maybe in a dream when you gain consciousness, you can commit to non-linear aspects they may not be normally "proportional". But consciousness in of itself is self awareness, that in turn creates a inward reflective pondering of self. Which thereby creates philosophical questioning of self, and people relative to self. How are human's not under the logical reasoning of cause on effect. We generally understand everything we do has repercussion of a greater or lesser degree. Independently of our creator as far as we know are our parents.

Originally Posted by Dreams4free

Heroin is a pain killer. Are you really arguing that Heroin has no correlation with survival. It has so many biological effects upon the body that create a satisfied feeling. It's mainly associated with tolerance of pain and anti-anxiety... Of course in the long turn it may have harmful effects, but on a fundamental immediate use, it is a strong reliever.
Therefore their are many physicological benefits from immediate use that show a correlation one way, or another.

That is assuming that the initial use of heroin is inherently for said pain relief, which is just not true. Many people do it just to get high. They do it because they like the way it feels, even when they are not experiencing any pain. How is it that, when in an arguably pain-free state of mind, one can get caught up in something so dangerous for the sake of a temporary euphoria, and it be attributed to "survival," even when they know how detrimental it can be in the long run?

I wasn't "anxious" when I started smoking cigarettes. I was a carefree teenager, and I was curious. I had plenty of friends who didn't smoke, so it wasn't even for 'social' survival. I just wanted to see what it was like. Didn't like it at first, but I figured that, if so many people did it, maybe there was something I just wasn't understanding. I knew the risk before I even knew of the rewards (minimal as they are), and still, I picked up smoking.

How is that a habit that is attributed to survival?

(And please, combine your multi-posts, to different users, into one post.)

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

That's a damned good point. I know plenty of people (some of them close friends) who struggle with drugs. They have become addicted to them to the point where they are consciously aware that the drugs are slowly killing them, but they are unable to stop. Some of which are the type that will actually say "Man, I really need to stop doing this shit," minutes before getting their fix.

To the OP, please explain how such addiction comes from an adherence to personal survival? And not only an addiction to narcotics, but to adrenaline as well. If someone makes a profession out of breaking land-speed records, BASE jumping, bull riding, drag racing, etc. how, exactly are those indicative of 'doing only what is detrimental for one's survival'? If you ask me, it shows a cognizant awareness of "I might very well die if I do this, but DAMN it's going to be so much fun, so I've got to try it."

"breaking land-speed records, BASE jumping, bull riding, drag racing" - these are all experiences of living on the extrema of life, living on the edge of survival. We thrive on these few seconds of magnitude. If you are more interested in why we have to create this type of extrema for ourselves rather than just living in a environment where it comes to us, read Kierkegaard. He is very existentialist and talks a lot about the passion of existing, namely existentialism, has been diminishing.

"All these factors make it impossible for appreciation of taste to be based solely upon survival."

I don't remember mentioning that appreciation of taste was key to survival. I do remember mentioning chocolate having sources of nutrients that help our body survive. The fact of the matter is that when you don't give your kid a lot of vegetables and rather pizza and other shit all the time, his taste buds just get used to it. Even a big mac has plenty of good nutrients in it, but not in excess. That is still a invalid arguement.

You said that everything we do is for survival.

'Tasting things' is a subset of 'everything we do'.

And you are simply ignorant of biology if you still believe some of the things I listed have increase your chance of survival. You haven't really demonstrated how any of them help you survive (note that I am not asking why we like Big Macs (although I personally would rather eat mud), I am asking why we prefer their taste to healthy food, as this is clearly contrary to the needs of survival).

More examples include smoking, laziness, and Lucid Dreaming.

Originally Posted by Vampyre

Look, when it comes down to it this is what it is:

Question: What do you survive for?
Rephrased: What is the purpose for life?

Answer:




End.

There's no answer. There's nothing, so you can input anything you want. If this bothers you, then you're weak.

The reason I say this, is because you seem to be challenging people's inputs over silly things.

Yeah well I really do apologize that living for nothing bothers me. You know what... you sound like that weak and pathetic simpleton who would just rather have the information spoon fed at one point instead of questioning or giving a damn about it. "There is no answer. There is nothing", that great if your atheist who is cynical about everything I do. "you seem to be challenging people's input over silly things" I am just responding queries and assertions with my logical reasoning. Well thank you for being useless and cynical, anything less productive and more narrow minded to say? I'm not asking what is the purpose of life, I'm just trying to derive values that survival could be linked to.... If you are wondering about the purpose of life go the religion forum, being a shallow minded atheist is well received over there.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

That is assuming that the initial use of heroin is inherently for said pain relief, which is just not true. Many people do it just to get high. They do it because they like the way it feels, even when they are not experiencing any pain. How is it that, when in an arguably pain-free state of mind, one can get caught up in something so dangerous for the sake of a temporary euphoria, and it be attributed to "survival," even when they know how detrimental it can be in the long run?

I wasn't "anxious" when I started smoking cigarettes. I was a carefree teenager, and I was curious. I had plenty of friends who didn't smoke, so it wasn't even for 'social' survival. I just wanted to see what it was like. Didn't like it at first, but I figured that, if so many people did it, maybe there was something I just wasn't understanding. I knew the risk before I even knew of the rewards (minimal as they are), and still, I picked up smoking.

How is that a habit that is attributed to survival?

(And please, combine your multi-posts, to different users, into one post.)

Read Kierkegaard.. your life lacked passion thereby you smoked cigarettes because obviously your life didn't satisfy you enough.. you needed something different to make it interesting. Without passion comes laziness, laziness in turn creates paralysis, paralysis in turn creates altered stats of mind, confusion. Etc... I appreciate the the questions though. I apologize for multi-posts, I'm trying to the format of dream views, and it has just been easier to post by quoting then elaborating.

I survive for the reason I was born, not because I want to but because I was made to. I believe that any feelings of positive yearning to "experience" the future of life are illusions made by the mind. We are all born for one reason, like you first noted, to try and survive. "Reaching a perfect efficiency." Much like a falling water droplet does, attempts to make a a perfect sphere, because that's a perfect form of conservation.

Originally Posted by Dreams4free

Yeah well I really do apologize that living for nothing bothers me. You know what... you sound like that weak and pathetic simpleton who would just rather have the information spoon fed at one point instead of questioning or giving a damn about it. "There is no answer. There is nothing", that great if your atheist who is cynical about everything I do. "you seem to be challenging people's input over silly things" I am just responding queries and assertions with my logical reasoning. Well thank you for being useless and cynical, anything less productive and more narrow minded to say? I'm not asking what is the purpose of life, I'm just trying to derive values that survival could be linked to.... If you are wondering about the purpose of life go the religion forum, being a shallow minded atheist is well received over there.

Thanks for your personal attacks, they're very appropriate and relevant.

On topic, I do question information. The problem is: there are questions that can't be answered. Get over it. Questions like "what do you survive for?" don't have a specified answer. If there was, then we'd all agree upon it. However, people here have been sharing their inputs and you went off ranting to try and challenge each one as if they're wrong, when they're not.

You might also note that I included "so you can input anything you want." Which is different from saying there's no reason to survive. It's not just living for nothing, it's living for whatever you want.

I really don't know what you're expecting here. Obviously nobody's answer to your question will satisfy what you're looking for. Why are you being so argumentative about it?

I apologize, I guess I was being shallow-minded when I thought you wanted to hear people's responses. Turns out you wanted to argue about them over silly things like the desire for chocolate being linked to survival, or neuron transmissions being complex thought processes. Forgive me if those don't seem rather silly when compared to the reason we choose to survive.