Security of "being" probably.

 

Because i'm so afraid of "not being" that i think that creating such division between you and me i "will be" ? Do you see how contradictory it is ? ...
Because you as well as me are afraid of "not being"! Why then, the need for this division that eventually will lead us to fight one each other to protect oneself against the other ?.

 

It has to be contradictory otherwise it's an identity and they would be just the same object/subject.
The need of division see its birth not when you establish a "to be or not to be" contradiction, but when you state A≠B and start listing in categories. All these things define the border of my "being" from yours. I see your point where you think this is not a true border but a rather rhetorical one (imposed by others: society, religion et similia) and I agree with that. Unfortunately this is still the state of minority in which we live, and it needs contradiction to simply exist and define itself.
Tomorrow, you or I could live possibly in the same or in a different state or contradiction that comes out of another type of identity.

 

I must leave now for my sister's home, and i don't want to answer you in a hurry. I get with me a printed copy of your answer though. If you can wait we can continue with our dialog in 3/4 hours, hope you'll still be here by then!
Thanks a lot for the feedback chopin4525! ... Maybe we'll not solve the human conflict with our words but we can learn of one each other through our dialog.

 

just like any childish fight start. From a basic misunderstanding or an hatred.
First human gatherings further than family bonds, were made to feel secured and organize the work in order to survive.
But I can't think it was only utilitarian. Why would you feel insecure toward the same specie in the first place?
I guess because of an agression or some "personal incompatibility"?
When did the human switch from "monkey" to "monkey with an identity", and invent the group dynamics (corollary of it, is hate and competition). "what make my tribe better, why do we deserve more to survive?"

I have no definitive answer to this question.

Despite the whole agressivity, and how evil this whole evolution was from the start.
It allowed creation, education, art, diverse culture, writing ... all the cool things about being human basically. When survival and identity was assured.

No "cogito ergo sum" until very recently because the will to live on was stronger than explaining life and consciousness.
My PoV must be a bit confused.

 

War is inevitable, I'm not specifically referring to this situation but in general. Honestly I hate hippie bullshit where people somehow think that it's not and we should all hold hands and sing. That's not the way the world works...that's not the way people work, those thoughts are just wishful thinking with no basis in reality. I've said it before and I'll say it again: you put two people in a room and one will try to rule over the other, that's all there is to it. And have you ever considered that human beings are defined by conflict? I had this argument with Alraun in the Music Can Be A Weapon thread but I'll post one of the articles I put up there: Is War Inevitable?

PS the United Nations is the biggest JOKE of an institution ever created. Besides the rampant corruption these countries have a vested interest in their actions that isn't exactly altruistic. You should watch Penn & Teller's Bullshit! - World Peace episode on this subject, it's pretty funny, the UN bit is around the 17 minute mark.

Yeah I could get behind this if it said all countries, remove the western. The Middle East isn't exactly the picture of peace and stability so let's not go there. *no*

 

You say war is inevitable, and you specify very clear "in general", but i can't imagine you fighting with the first person you meet in the street, nor trying to rule your wife, girl-frind, children (if you have) or fellow workers that could happen to be in the same room as you at the same time ... Otherwise you'll be a psychotic (who i don't think you're) ... I'm afraid that none of your assertions would stand a serious talk about what war is and what are their true causes.

I don't know if you're referring to chopin4525 and me when you talk about "hippies holding hands and singing" ? ... because if it is so, i'm afraid you've missed totally the point of our dialog.

And you've got this from what sources, if i may ask ?. Look, this is the easy way to talk about anything ... "that is like this, period!" ... But i was just wandering if you have been interested at any moment to find out by yourself alone the real causes of any conflict ... Which were the results of your OWN investigations, then ?

I have no need to watch anything but the human being, because to me the biggest joke is human being itself ... trying to bring about peace through war (and i mean ANY war).

I was wandering ... Can this be questioned or on the contrary they are absolute truths that we poor human ignorant beings have to accept without any questioning ?.

 

I don't generally get into fights with people in the room with me but it has happened. It's not about being a psychotic or not, it's about being human.

Not referring to anyone, just the idea of one day we're going to wake up and there will be no war, it's just rather naive to me. I just don't believe that's ever going to happen.

I got that from watching the history and evolution of the human race. I actually almost finished preparing an answer for the Supreme Court Orders Rapidshare To Police The Internet thread which will tie in with this. You're always looking for something to blame for why we are the way we are but who's to say that if you find it that would make a difference? Really all this is not because of one thing, it's a ton of different variables and I don't see how listing all of them will create any kind of lasting change.

I don't know if we've been watching the same species my friend.

You can question all you want but that doesn't mean it will change a thing. It's just rocking chair philosophy, it gives you something to do yet gets you nowhere.

 

Hi again chopin4525!

Could you elaborate that for me ?. I'm not sure to understand you.

Including also ourselves in this listing and not only external things/persons.

And then all the human being has to do is question by him/herself if that border is really rhetorical or not, isn't it ?. But nobody is willing to do that while forgetting any creed or ideas they could have about it based merely in what others have said/written. They say is tedious, boring, nonsense ... or say "War is inevitable" or "you put two people in a room and one will try to rule over the other", adding quotes from others to support their thinking. Do you understand what i mean ? ... Why human being is unable to think by itself ? Why we base our whole life in what others have said (no matter the color of it) about life, fighting one each other trying to constantly defend those ideas that are not really ours ? ... Again, is it that questioning all those ideas brings insecurity to the mind and that's why we attach to them so strongly because we feel secure/protected somehow, surrounded by any group that follows those very same ideas (no matter if they're religious or "materialistic" ?. Why we don't see that it is that attachment to a mere idea that brings about conflict ?.

After million years human beings are in this earth, you mean ?.

Some of our fellow beings have said that they accomplished a state of "non-identity" and that anyone of us can accomplish the same. Now, would you say that this is nothing but another type of identity ?.

 

He had to draw the line somewhere
there is a level of horror even a ex Nazi cannot contemplate

 

That may be

But the USA has done everything the Nazi's were working on

A lot of it in the background

everything except ovens

 

Then you're contradicting yourself. Of course it can happen, but you made an assertion - put two people in a room and one will try to rule over the other - which to me it means "always". But now you say "not-always".

Again i question that, but when i question what you say your answer is "it's just rocking chair philosophy, it gives you something to do yet gets you nowhere", closing any further dialog. Have you ever questioned your own beliefs ?. Or you're so sure about them that you think it's a nonsense to question them ?.

Flower will continue to grown up as soon there are the causes and conditions for it to grow up. But if any of this causes or conditions disappear flower will be no more. To think that one day we'll wake up and any war will have finished is naive, but to think that this will never be possible is also naive. Try to stop absolutely all your personal wars and see what happens around you then. But of course, you'll say that this is impossible because the human being is prepared for war since the very moment he or she sees the light, isn't it ?.

The point here is that we human beings are so lazy that always wait for another to do our job. As i've told you already, try to stop absolutely all your personal wars and then you could tell me if that is really going to happen or not.

Again we disagree here, because for me there's only on thing and not "a ton of different variables", which is ignorance. Ignorance of what, you may ask. Ignorance of believing we know ourselves (and by extension, the rest of humanity) when we don't know anything but what others have said about it. But as i've said above, we prefer that than to spend some time alone with ourselves and see what we don't want to see ... which is that we are greedy, egotistic, violent, jealous, envious and so on ... we prefer to disguise ourselves before others. And that my friend is also a war, the inner war we are fighting with ourselves everyday. How then can it be possible external wars coming to an end when we are not able to stop our own inner wars ?.

Of course we are, only that there's a difference in trying to see human beings as a whole or just a part of it.

I don't think you really realize at all what you're saying here ...
Just one question: could you tell me how is it that we've met and can talk one each other now through this media if there were not someone before that question deeply to him/herself if that could be possible (despite others telling him/her that it would not be possible) ?.

 

fraggle83

I do not think a just world is possible
maybe when the metal droids make everything
and everybody has all the crap they want

the only truth is to try to understand reality
for what it really is

all the rest is base mammal drives
which we interpet as our desires and needs

the DNA is only interested in the next generation
whether you have a good time,live or die,
or you are nice to other creatures is beside the point

we have had thousands of years to mature to some real kind of a civilization
the fancy new tech will not make a better world

why do you think they make all those rules in the ancient bibles of
different religions

Still just ten hairs short of a chimpanzee *no* *yes*

 

The problem is that they are not rules in a strict sense. Those so called rules where created by interpreters of the original teaching. By those who considered themselves with the power to interpret those teachings for others supposedly too much ignorant to understand anything; making them to really believe that it would be impossible for them alone to understand anything about the teaching. On the other hand, some of those "different religions" as you call it are supposed to teach their followers to think by themselves and question everything ... Buddha himself, for example, said that nobody should believe what he said merely out of respect for him. He said that people should question his teachings in the same way a jeweler checks the quality of gold before to buy it. But how many buddhist question deeply the words of his/her teachers ?. More when most of those religions (buddhism included) say in their teachings: you should not doubt of/question your teacher because it's impossible for your ignorance to know the real purpose of anything he/she's doing/saying. So, we never question anything, but merely accept the created rules that were not in the original teaching out of fear to feel alone or be isolated from the group. Furthermore, how many of the so called followers of those created religious rules know really the original teaching ? ... And of those, how many of them go deep inside themselves trying to find out the truth or falsity of it ? ... Everybody is looking for God outside because we were said to do so, we never look for it inside ... and if it happens that someone does that and tells others to do so, he or she is soon accused of heresy and burned at the stake or isolated, marginalized from the group (i know of buddhist practitioners that have fear even to ask their lamas for something they don't understand of the teachings out of fear for what others may think about them being so ignorant). And of course, what has been said here applies also to any aspect of life (being it politics, economics or anything else).

Anyway, the fact is that nobody questions anything outside ... not to talk of ourselves inside.
We've traveled a long journey since we were taught to have fear to question and now it is deeply engraved in all our minds.
We have been taught also, since time immemorial, to believe that we're unable to understand anything by ourselves and that that's the reason why we need all kind of interpreters and rules to understand ......
If not, tell me please, how many people that you know personally have told you at one time or another "i don't see the news because i don't understand a thing of economics, politics, etc." (or something similar) ?

Now, why do you think Catalyst and chopin4525 have left after reading my answers to their posts without saying anything at all (yes it's easy to know who's visiting and leaving the thread) ?

 

I run into a lot of people who, wish to understand none of it and could care less

If they can buy a house , drive a car, buy beer for Friday they are good to go

the A-RICH-OCRATIC top 1% never learn this , the greed is unbounded

let the regular people, get F'd , raise the family and have a little left over they will never complain

George Carlin

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”


We're so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody's going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven't learned how to care for one another. We're gonna save the fuckin' planet? . . . And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compared with the people, the planet is doin' great. It's been here over four billion years . . . The planet isn't goin' anywhere, folks. We are! We're goin' away. Pack your shit, we're goin' away. And we won't leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we'll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.”

you know why sometimes you are easily fooled buy another person, especially when they f__k you over or cheat you , more things than just for money

You project yourself onto the other person , thinking they have the same sense of morality and fairness that you do, nothing could be farther from the truth

once you have been screwed over you say the hell with it I am out for Me

when you have power and money, your empathy goes to zero

It will never be sane ,proceeding from a sound mind , there are no sound minds out there

 

Why is that a contradiction? Is there some rule that says it has to be one or the other? We're not specifically talking about whether one or a selected few can be beyond this but rather the whole human race and it's an assessment of humanity as a whole, just as a microcosm of the larger issue here. And I'd argue that those that are beyond that only have the luxury because other men have fought and died to give it to them. The luxury to sit there and ponder.

I question my beliefs all the time I just don't look at things how I wish they were I look at things as how they are. The glass is both half-empty and half full. Without war there can be no peace, just like without hate there can be no love. Everything needs it's counterpart and we are so quick to want to remove what we perceive as defects when this is what allows all the magic to happen. How much have you learned when you were happy? Exactly.

We are a hell of a lot more complex than a flower and I don't have to point to the million places in the world where the environment exists for peace yet people kill each other day in and day out. It's in our DNA and in our interaction with our environment from birth. From the very moment you are pulled out of the safe comfort of a warm womb into the cold, painful and suffocating world. Make no mistake birth is a violent act in and of itself. I didn't say it's not possible, I just said it isn't very likely. It's the same way I feel about God which is why I am an agnostic. The idea of God asks you to forget everything you see for some ideal which is really our avoidance of facing our nature and our fears because they make us feel small and insignificant, to me that is the epitome of egoism. We think we're just so damn important to the universe but the universe doesn't give two shits about us, we are nothing but cosmic dirt. And we know that religion never spilled blood to bring the people of the world that wonderful story about how we were made by some man in the sky and we should all love each other, insert irony here. Religion itself is the ultimate expression of egoism and ignorance, I mean think about it...science doesn't even know how the human mind works and they're measuring and calculating yet religion tells us about all the mysteries of the universe so then we can walk around like we're in the know and holier than thou. Gee I'm glad I don't have to do any thinking myself but here is a set of prepackaged thoughts that can make me feel warm and fuzzy about something that is anything but. This is what we a call a non sequitur just like your statement, you have no evidence to support your position yet you choose to believe it anyway. I don't live my life this way because it's not practical and it certainly isn't about facing reality, it's about the mind's desperate attempts to find sense. No offense intended to anybody that is religious, I just speak my mind and really don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. It just happens to be a really good analogy and proves a point.

I'm not lazy and I'm the last person to wait for another to do my job, I just don't waste my time chasing fairy tales to make myself feel better about the human race. You have about as much chance of waking up to a peaceful world as you have to wake up to no corruption or no religion. Yep people need war just as much as they need to invent a notion of some magnificent being that is going to make sense of the world and their role in it. And again personal wars have their purposes too but here you are trying to eradicate them. Diamonds don't grow in peaceful conditions they grow under extreme pressure and conflict. Every living thing struggles and fights to survive and thrive.

Again here you are assuming that having some bit of information is going to solve all of our problems. You can't research your way to peace my friend, it just doesn't work like that. Well unless you find some drug to quell our violent natures like they did in the movie Equilibrium...yeah that worked out real well. And no ignorance is not the only reason that wars happen and ignorance of what exactly? Aren't you being ignorant be denying that war is a part of our nature...especially considering I have the entirety of human experience to back up my position but you're just going on an ideal. And why do you assume that me coming to this conclusion has anything to do with what I see in myself? This is validated by what I see in others, history, etc. more than anything. I'm actually a very peaceful person and I try to look at things with an open mind. You've also just proven my point by saying that we don't want to see that we're greedy, egotistic, violent, jealous, envious. Is it just a coincidence that people are like that or did everyone somehow miraculously learn that at the same time? I'm not saying we can't try to find better solutions and try to avoid war if possible but there's no way we're going to eradicate the problem. I'll tell you what let's meet up here in 20 years and see where we're at, especially when everything starts to collapse and resources are stretched to their breaking points. People will eat each other alive...they already do, they don't need any more incentive.

Interesting that you think you're seeing the whole part of it when you are completely denying like half of our being. How do you know that I am not seeing all of it and you're seeing only a part of the human experience, primarily what you want to see? Maybe it makes you uncomfortable to face the utter horror of the human condition, don't worry you're not alone in that my friend. We're all along for the ride.

What does one thing have anything to do with another? I didn't realize creating an invention and creating everlasting world peace were somehow connected. Two completely different things and I don't understand how you equate them. If they were comparable we would have world peace by now, no? Especially since we should have been working at it for quite a while and science is in it's infancy.

 

Look Catalyst it's not my wish to convince you of anything. I just tried to dialog with you, trying to inquire together to see if it's possible a radical change in the human nature by seeing the causes of the conflict. But wherever i read you, your words say that's not possible. That any try in that sense will be nothing more than an illusion or a waste of time for anybody who tries. That's your thought and i have nothing to say about it, as i've said i have no wish to try to convince you about anything. Because i'm not talking about changing the humanity, which nobody have the power to change it as a whole. I'm just talking about the individual changing. I just say that if one is able to see really the causes of a war deep inside oneself, those causes can be changed radically inside oneself. But you say "no, that's not possible" and attach yourself to that thought making impossible further inquiring. We are not here to convince one each other, fighting trying to defend our thinking against the other. We are here to dialog, and this dialog has proved to be impossible by now. Anyway thanks for sharing your thoughts with me, i've learn some things through this sharing (besides practicing my english).

 

Take care fraggle83

it was a good topic

I hope you can make this miracle planet a better place :dancing:

now more vodka *yes* *no*

 

Why do we expect anything from another and feel hurt when he or she doesn't give us what we expect ?. I meet many people everyday saying "the hell with it I am out for Me" but when they are in deep troubles they ask for help and understanding to others. And then they complain about others because doing JUST THE SAME that tenths of a second ago they were doing also with those from who now they are demanding some help, understanding or whatever. Calling them egotistic and absolutely forgetting how egotistic they were just tenths of a second ago, before the troubles (a terminal sickness, lose of job, lose of home because unable to pay the bill, and so on) appeared.

Now that you mention, would you mind (you or anyother) to explain me the concept "sound mind" as i've never been able to translate it into spanish. Thanks!

ADDENDUM:

You would not have a glass of vodka for sharing with me too?

 

I disagree (that much was clear). War is not inevitable.

I guess I cannot consider myself a hippy since I am not old enough and because the thoughts expressed by me have some solid geopolitical and philosophical basis (some of them however streamed in that movement and I guess everybody today is enjoying part of their conquers in sexuality as in the use of cannabis) and as such are pretty far from wishful thinking. They are instead rational thinking, and this is the only mean by which we can build a somewhat better society.
On the contrary I totally disrespects the "that's how things works", "live and let live", "let's sit and wait" positions because they bring nothing to the discussion and are not constructive at all in topics where we can and we must be for the sake of the entire human kind.
If what you said was true, then we would have lived in a changeless secular society which is not the case because we know how and when societies evolved in order to abide the needs of the growing population (the growth is also intellectual, not only demographic). And thinks that were never questioned before (god existence, death penalty, LGBT rights...) because they threatened some older founding values start to be questioned by free thinkers and educated people. All of these, were not wishful thinking, in fact they produced fine results as they were better ideas than the ones in use which were overcome (Ex.: On Crimes and Punishments is an enlightening essay of Cesare Beccaria and thanks to it and the discussion that followed, today many European countries do not support death penalty anymore). They're called "memes" in fact and there is also an evolution concerning them. We are not evolving biologically (perhaps, hard to say it) but in cultural terms we do continue. That's why what you dismiss as wishful thinking or judge useless instead is not. Dialogue is the only concrete mean we have to evolve our memes and to create better ones. Socrates started, now the relay baton has been passed on us. Let's put it in good use, without denigration on our side.

P.S.: I hope you've also read the follow up of one article you linked. I read it after my written response and I am quite relieved that there is also some biological sense to my thoughts (not only philosophical).

Gosh, it to took me years to write this essay!

I mean this: contradiction is needed when you need to define a subject. When you define something, let's say "A", you state what "A" is. By doing that you also imply what "A" is not.

Of course. Everything that is.

You got the point. Nobody questions where all this identity come from and what is it's most profound and inner meaning if there is any. You've seen the answers in this thread: "That's how things works" et similia. Many people prefer that labels and ideas define them passively instead of actively try to define their own ideas and labels. That brings ideologies into society and all the problems related to them.

No, I was quoting Kant to whom enlightenment was "the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred minority". We reduce ourselves in this minority when we refuse or we are unable to understand, explain, analyze things by ourselves. In that particular case, when we let ideas define and govern our lives.

I totally disagree with that. This kind of "non-identity" it's simply nonsense in biological terms and can only be achieved by the worst means, nullifying our inner being. I presume that if or when this happens, there will be huge consequences on our psyches, and will probably destroy our biological brain. It's still a very sensible organ, you cannot implant things so easily.

You can choose between these:

1. We got a life too;
2. We got scared.