Philosophy Thread
 

Finally: An all purpose philosophy thread. Post your philosophies on human nature and soceity here. Feel free to agree or disagree with anyone; I encourage well thought-out and serious debates. No random or irrelevant posts, please [example of a crappy and irrelevant post: "chaos is the life force of the universe, man"].

To get the ball rolling, I'll propose this basic theory:
"Bad" qualities, such as greed, lust, corruption, and anger, are just as much ingrained in the human physche as "good" qualities. These supposedly negative feelings are really just a more advanced form of the survival instinct. When humans became sentinent, they're minds became more complex, so why not they're basic instincts for survival as well? The urge to mate and continue one's genetic line became "lust", the prodatory protection of a recent kill became "greed", territorial instincts and male vs. male conflict became "anger", etc etc. All our sopposed physcoligical faults as a species are really just more complex versions of the basic need to survive (therefore, the more morally correct you are, the less instinct for survival you have). Whether or not these instincts are required in today's soceity is a yet-unanswered question.

All qualitys of human nature are neccisary for our survival. If you get rid of one then the whole balance of good and evil would be changed dramaticly. This society is based on the human nature, if the world was perfect and there was no war or work and no need for money or to worry about food; then life would be, well, boring. If get rid of such things as hard work then you get rid of goals and many peoples lives would be meaningless. Through out history wars have been one of the staple things to bring up the economy and many other thing. The selling of weapons to another country while they are in a war is extreimly profitable. Things like the black plague, it kill many many people, but on the other hand it also brought about the Renaissance which led to the Age of Enlightenment/reason which ultimatly brought us to the modern day.

You still didn't respond to my propasal about human nature. The nature of humanity is not to strive for perfection, but rather is to achieve a consistant and regular way of life. This desire for a stable and unchanging world is a remenant of our former, pre-sentinent origins: What animals want (if they even have the abillity to desire), more than anything else, is a form of life that gives insurance for the future, a world where one day is pretty much the same as the next. This animal desire for consistency that is rooted in our past conflicts with our modern, sentinent desire for our lives to be interesting and constantly dynamic. The true visionaries are those who learn to live on the border between these two desires.

I think that since humanity did indeed make 'society' (or at least named it and set the standards for it) then those emotions (or instincts as you put it) would already have a place in society. The two would not be seperate since humans are not robots and cannot live without feelings.

But If you are taking a scientific approach to it then what you remarked on feelings makes sense. Everything has to start from somewhere, and making that jump that feelings evolve from instincts is not hard to make at all.

What I find is that humans are ever in the constant need to understand. That's why we name and label everything, it makes it easier for us to remember. We build our knowledge from what we find and we go from there. I guess it's left over from millions of years ago when humans would be thinking of how to solve this problem to survive. In today's society the threat of constant danger is gone, but we still have the instinct to figure things out. Thus making our standards of living better as scientists, inventors, etc. find new ways to solve the endless problems we have.

I also think that emotions are one of the things that humans just cannot quite figure out. We can define how they affect our body (being embarressed means that blood rushes to our face, etc.) but we cannot define how they affect our thinking. Which is why we have whole classes and careers on the subject (Sociology, Psycology, etc.) it comes back to our ever growing need to understand.

Let's not turn this into an English essay. Logic, not good wording, is the key to good philosophy. But moving on, emotions are simply humanity's equivelent of the spontaneous desires/hatreds of the animal world. Whole soceities are built upon the foundation of one or more of these instincts. Love, hatred, jealosy, these are ideas that all have parallels in the phsyke of the natural world. They are a response to our enviroment, just like eating is a response to hunger. The fact is that humans are animals who, now not needing to apply all of their brain to survival, have applied much of it to other basic questions about the world around them. This in turn, at least in today's soceity, has become a survival instinct of its own. The search for knowledge, where once it served as stimulating thought for our restless minds, has in itself become a basic necessity in the quest for success and survival in today's age.

ok, i began typing this ages ago, (at about 4 pm eastern) and left it there. this is my response to the first post on the thread:

I agree on some of this. I just think that, while the more people exhibit these "complex survival instincts" the less sentient and more propense to instincts they are. The more we selfelessly give, denying our "survival instinct" the more sentient and less basic we get. Same goes for strength vs. intelligence. The tribe has little use for a weak guy who can calculate very large numbers. However, they do have use for that strong brute, if they can teach him to thrust a spear/swing a blade and make him understand who the enemy is.

Now a good question is cruelty. Where does IT stem from? No other animal is cruel. No other animal does cruel-like things. It is not needed for survival. So, where does it come from. I say it is one of the faults of sentientism (not a word...)

Lastly, why are so many humans so selfish? And violent? Why do conflicts need wars to be solved? Why can't leaders sit down in a little room, leaving pride at the door, and discuss what's best for both sides? I think it's the School Fight Effect (ooh, my own theorem, my own title....) Think about it. If the two biggest, meanest guys in your school (back in 5th grade, or maybe even later...) decided thay have a problem, and sat down, how long would it be before they (being volatile as they are) decide that there is another problem. Meanwhile, fights settle all disputes. If the loser wants to challenge the winner again, he may. Otherwise, the winner takes all. Same in war, right? (Yes, I am proposing that many politicians are in fact no better than 5th graders....)

As far as the current arguement, I think that our feelings are all there to insure the survival of these things, in order 1) yourself 2) your offspring and 3) the species. Different situations bring about changes in the order, but it remains moslty like this (IE, an older person who is no longer able to have offsrping might be more willing to die for his offspring, a hero in an RPG will selflessly give his life for his species..)(I know the last one is kinda stupid, but still.... you get the point) We humans will protect ourselves to the end, right? If we can't, most often we will try to protect our genetic code, our children. If that cannot be done, we will at least hope that other humans survive.

In the series of books called Dune, by Frank Herbert, there is a faction that believes that love is useless and dangerous. That it "fullfilled it's purpose, but is no longer necessary." The purpose was the survival of humanity, but what with hundreds of fully settled planets with populations rivaling Earth, and even more humans in god knows how many universes, it was not needed. I know that Dune is a work of fiction, but I think that that is a good point. Most feelings are safety nets, to prevent the destruction of the self, the influence of the self, and the species that the self is part of.

(of course, this should not subtract from the fact that many felings are beautiful. IE, love.)

One word: Testosterone. You think violence and conflict aren't apparent in nature? Most fights between animals of the same species are either because they want the same mate or they both want leadership of the pack/group. Sound familiar? Humans have just taken this and expanded it to fit their own situation. It is not a new trait, but rather an old one that has been modified to fit the times.

Also, survival of yourself and your offspring are subcomponents of survival of species. These two ideas help ensure the species' survival. Most creatures and humans don't even realise that they do things to protect the species, but anything they do for themselves and their offspring helps the species as a whole. Its a frightening thought, that everything we want to do is governed by whether or not it'll help the species. Keep in mind that when I say they help the species, I mean basic instinctive reactions to situations. It doesn't matter if an action actually helps a species, it just matters whther or not your subconscience and your body think so. For example, many people start doing drugs because of peer pressure. Peer pressure and the desire to fit into a social group is part of our old pack mentality, a survival instinct. The reason people become addicted to drugs is because they're body thinks it needs that substance to function properly, another survival instinct. Drugs tend to hinder one's survival, and the person knows that, but they're body does not. Their body thinks that its simply protecting itself in order to ensure survival of species. Heck, ever our very desire for success is a safeguard against the human race's extinction.

I agree with you to a point. But it doesn't explain all negative behavior. Lust, to a point, would be only to pass on genetic information, etc. But how do you pass on your genes when you, say, relieve yourself on another human being? Your explanation of greed doesn't explain stealing or stuff like cheating at the stock market via insider trading. Also, anger stems from a whole lot more than male vs. male conflicts and territorial instincts. Take spousal abuse, for example. It goes against every survival instinct; you don't beat the living hell out of the bearer of your children.

As to your statement that moral correctness equals less survival instinct, I think that over simplifies the situation. Moral conduct helps us function in a society. We help others in order to help ourselves. For example, you would want to prevent crime because there's less chance that you yourself would be a victim of crime, and so on. The way I see it, those negative emotions you mentioned are better suited for survival of the individual. Morality is for the survival of the group.

Stealing and cheating are merely ways to make oneself more succesful, thereby insuring the continuation of the induvidual, his offspring, and his species.
Actually, "spousal abuse" happens all the time in nature. It is not uncommon for a female to eat the male after mating, an iteresting *cough cough* feature apparent in many different kinds of creatures. Also, most animals go their seperate ways after mating, and never see each other again, making the whole point moot.
Sure that might be the case with alot of people, but as I said before, that's their mind thinking that. I know this is hard to understand, but a typical human subconscience is not comprehensive enough to follow the long list of conclusions that the active mind can follow. Instead, it relies on instincts to override supposedly smart things we do, in order to protect what it thinks of as the survival of the species. The general active human mind does not even think about the survival of humanity. But the subconsious does, however. Our morals are in place to seperate ourselves from the rest of nature. They are not in place to ensure survival of the species, even if they lead to it.
I disagree. Anything that potentially benefits the individual also indirectly benefits the species as well. You have to think about in bigger terms; If all humans are striving for their own survival, then they are also indirectly benefitting the overall survival of humanity. To conclude, my argument is based on what our instincts tell us help's survival of the species, not what our common sense tells us would help it.

I agree with you Viktor. I also think that modern society is trying to curb us from purely personal survival, to pack survival instincts. It is frowned upon when a man decides he will win no matter the cost (if the cost is something like, say, kill his brother) While it puts kind, selfless people on little pedestals. Shining examples of proper morality! And also of poverty! But, who cares, he help dozens of people, so what if he suffered through it?

And, spousal abuse is probably the instinct to assert dominance of the male in the household. It may occur if A) the man as a child was over-controlled by his mother, or if B) the man came from a house in which wife beating was normal. I'm not condoning it, but it is probably for those reasons, plus a plethora more.