i would start with accepting that we are bald apes. studying apes is very revealing....
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P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat
What is human nature? v. And are we innately evil?
- Thread starter Nixiam
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i would start with accepting that we are bald apes. studying apes is very revealing....
Cosmic Trigger
Bluelighter
Indeed and I have. I do love them Bonobo's. It's nice to know sax and violins don't always have to go together.
Gnostic Bishop
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Support that the definition of evolution Darwin used included both cooperation and competition?
Survival of the fittest says that when not cooperating, organisms are competing to determine who the fittest are.
This is not rocket science or anything not already known.
If you meant for me ti support, "All primate species have a hierarch", --- I do not have the time to list all the ones who do have hierarchies as all the ones I know of do.
I will take your short list that contradicts this though.
Regards
DL
Gnostic Bishop
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We have never been egalitarian as far as I can see.
What tribe do you know of that did not have a chief or shaman leader?
Regards
DL
Gnostic Bishop
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Impossible. I do think we can change the form of it's expression though.
In fact, we already have in that we compete mentally more these days than the physical competing we would have done in less intelligent and more barbaric days.
We still love war too much but that love of drama can and is being re-directed as we speak to video games and such.
Regards
DL
Gnostic Bishop
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It is a much better idea than to think we are the only animals in existence who do not have instincts passed on by our ancestors.
We are special, in terms of intelligence, as far as we know, but we are not that special that we are the only animals without instincts.
Regards
DL
Gnostic Bishop
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Absolutely and this is a good thing as our selfish gene pushes us to be the fittest of our species.
Take that selfishness away and mankind would soon find itself extinct.
All other animals also have it and it serves us all well.
Regards
DL
okay, let's start. Darwin isn't god. Nor is he at all important to evolutionary biology. Are you aware that Isaac Newton invented calculus? I took three semesters in college, and his name was never mentioned. people want to see that there is some struggle between christianity and evolutionary theory, and thus need some counterpoint to jesus. it's idiocy - evolutionary theory in no way contradicts the possibility of divine creation a la genesis. you heard me. it's totally possible that god created all the animals and shit 6000 years ago, and they've been evolving since just as darwin says. if all the organisms within a species are slightly different, and these differences are heriditable - as, i think, most people would agree, then what the hell else could they have been doing but evolving? ABIOGENESIS is the theory that contradicts genesis and i doubt Darwin ever thought much about it.
continuing, what Darwin meant by 'survival of the fittests' isn't at all like what you imagine. In Darwinian terms the phrase is best understood as "Survival of the form that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations." competition has jack to do with it - if being nice gets you more babies, coorperation is the fittest strategy.
beyond that:
you know that darwin had no idea at all about genes, genetics or mendelevian inheritance, right?
i don't know where to begin with this. where do you get the idea that humans don't have instincts? or, rather, what do you mean by instincts? when a woman gives birth, and then loves and cares for her infant, instead of thinking - wow, what a nasty, smell, loud tumor that just fell our of my vagina, kill it with fire, it's because she's making a rational, logical decision. when all other animals do the exact same, it's instinct?
Gnostic Bishop
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I agree. Read what I was responding to.
I don't know where to begin either with a guy who ignores all the science and mainstream religions that agree with evolution and the big bang.
I agree that Darwin did not know of genes and DNA. He was a great observer though and worked out how evolution worked just by observation.
As to what I mean with the word instincts. Try Webster's Dictionary. I do not redefine words that are already well described.
I did not see anything listed for the non-hierarchical primate you hinted at. Care to list it?
Regards
DL
Nixiam
Bluelighter
Second, we need to know that acknowledging anything is part of our said programming.
swilow
Bluelight Crew
^What do you mean?
Nixiam
Bluelighter
If we have a trait that is human capability, we aren't set apart just by acknowledging something. Acknowledgement that we are programmed is something we are, in effect, programmed to do.
But it is a step, like Cosmic said. The third should be working to expand the capabilities of the human mind, like an expanse of firing neurons, causing super enhanced cognitive function or something.
This is all in trying to achieve a naturally dissolved ego, by the way. Not that its a good thing. Drugs are better, I think.
But it is a step, like Cosmic said. The third should be working to expand the capabilities of the human mind, like an expanse of firing neurons, causing super enhanced cognitive function or something.
This is all in trying to achieve a naturally dissolved ego, by the way. Not that its a good thing. Drugs are better, I think.
swilow
Bluelight Crew
I don't know if I agree with that. I think we have evolved certain traits, such as instincts, emotions, illusory free will to give us the idea that we are not programmed, that we have infinite choice and few limitations. I think an organism that KNEW it was fundamentally bound and locked into particular reactions with no escape would be an organism that is plagued by conflict, devoid of hope for the future, unable to retreat, unable to progress.
Sadly, I think humans are such an organism. The more I examine this, the more I think that our form of consciousness is a 'mistake' or an uneeded evolved trait. It certainly does not seem to make us happy and does not seem to benefit our species explicitly.
That said, I truly believe that through deep thought/introspection that this programming can, at least in part, be overridden. Or, I like to believe that.
Nixiam
Bluelighter
Ego dissolution^ eh? I dunno.
Cosmic Trigger
Bluelighter
That's pretty much the conclusion I've come to after all these years of searching for something to give me solace. But my other conclusion is that I likely don't have enough information for any final conclusions. That's our fate to this point.
Xorkoth
Bluelight Crew
I don't see us ever being able to fully understand the nature of existence... I really don't think that's possible. It doesn't mean I don't want to understand as much as possible, or that we won't grow to understand far more than we do now, or even that we won't indefinitely continue to understand more, as long as we survive. But to understand infinity as a finite being is likely impossible.
I don't really think our consciousness is a mistake... I think it's probably inevitable for a planet that can support a strong and vibrant system of life to eventually develop higher consciousness. I think it was an incredibly slow, incremental process, the result of a variety of factors leading to brain/processing development. I think there are certainly other animals on Earth that are self-aware and capable of higher thought, though I don't believe any are to our level. But throughout the fossil record we can see a slow development of the brain. Dinosaurs had tinier brains than a huge amount of the life forms now. Dogs are geniuses compared to dinosaurs. I think the universe tends towards greater and greater levels of complexity and organization, and life does this as well.
Being a life form with self-awareness and higher thought is an intense experience, and difficult in many ways, yet, for me, it also brings a lot of joy along with the pain. Like many things, it's a dichotomy.
I don't really think our consciousness is a mistake... I think it's probably inevitable for a planet that can support a strong and vibrant system of life to eventually develop higher consciousness. I think it was an incredibly slow, incremental process, the result of a variety of factors leading to brain/processing development. I think there are certainly other animals on Earth that are self-aware and capable of higher thought, though I don't believe any are to our level. But throughout the fossil record we can see a slow development of the brain. Dinosaurs had tinier brains than a huge amount of the life forms now. Dogs are geniuses compared to dinosaurs. I think the universe tends towards greater and greater levels of complexity and organization, and life does this as well.
Being a life form with self-awareness and higher thought is an intense experience, and difficult in many ways, yet, for me, it also brings a lot of joy along with the pain. Like many things, it's a dichotomy.
Cosmic Trigger
Bluelighter
Nothing in nature is a mistake unless one wants to take a subjective view which many do. Our highly developed neocortex is a relatively new addition to our brain. There seems to be an evolutionary process that is incomplete in that there seems to be a partial disconnect between our neo cortex and the other parts of our brain. As in our problematic emotions and emotion control. This is likely normal for the evolutionary process as it works out the kinks over time. Unfortunately we may go extinct before those kinks are worked out. That is also likely normal in any species that is undergoing change. Humans are not the end of the line IMO.
swilow
Bluelight Crew
By 'mistake', I mean an adaptation that is not strictly, explicitly beneficial or with clear purpose. There has been something like 10 billion species on earth. As far as we know, we are the first to attain self-awareness or at least the complexity of structure to enable self-awareness. It doesn't seem that our form of intelligence is common or expected or inevitable. It seems to have simply arisen for no clear reason. Which is supported by evolutionary theory; random mutations which arise and propagate through sexual and natural selection.
I guess I am tainted by the negativity I am experiencing recently so I am concluding that a lot of life/existence is mechanical and meaningless.
On topic, I actually disbelieve in the concept of evil. I think it sounds very fairytale, that an objective 'badness' exists as a fucntionality of the universe. I see it as a useless christian, binary idea. Evidence for which is lacking.
I guess I am tainted by the negativity I am experiencing recently so I am concluding that a lot of life/existence is mechanical and meaningless.
On topic, I actually disbelieve in the concept of evil. I think it sounds very fairytale, that an objective 'badness' exists as a fucntionality of the universe. I see it as a useless christian, binary idea. Evidence for which is lacking.
Cosmic Trigger
Bluelighter
Well I'm no expert but I don't know if any adaptation is 100% beneficial or with clear purpose. Don't get me wrong however as I'm one of those who consider humanity a failed experiment. We create unimaginable suffering while we go about our business and only those who are the lucky few and or put their heads in the sand would not see that with just a modicum of effort to become aware. Once you truly experience a little of it for whatever reason you lose your glibness on the subject right quick. At least for most. For myself I think I have found exactly what went wrong for us that has created this immense suffering (see Ernest Becker's work Denial of Death) and know that it is not from a personal fault of our own but a fact of the nature of existence which is at odds with our emotional self-awareness. So in that sense I do believe we are a huge mistake. Of course I'm being completely subjective when I say that. Who knows what if any the designs and purposes of nature are if any. In the meantime we suffer over and over from the same "mistakes" as all human history with the rise and fall of great civilizations has demonstrated.
Now where did I stash my opiates.
Now where did I stash my opiates.
Cosmic Trigger
Bluelighter
Early man in the Fertile Crescent before the climate changed it to desert. Recently watched a documentary on this. They were stationary hunter gatherers with ample food and low population. There is no evidence of warfare nor any hierarchy. This is from the archeological findings. They were the early arabic peoples I would guess but they had no name for them. Too early for that most likely. The golden age of humanity may have been very short. When the climate changed they had to scatter or die.