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Why?(NOT for the depressed or faint of heart!)

13

Comments

  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    bnt wrote: »
    It's just a ride, and we can enjoy the ride.

    :)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    Well then, what do you mean by including "just" & arguing that
    reproduction is as meaningless as anything else as opposed to meaningful?

    Simply that! Reproduction is as meaningless as any other pursuit one choses to take. I personally don't want to have kids because I don't think a biological imperative is a good enough reason to justify the creation of a being who has no choice in the matter, to me at least. Rationally speaking there is nothing wrong with that position and it harms no one, so what's the problem?
    Both points are cut from the same cloth & they point to a deeper outlook
    that I'm trying to understand.

    I don't think I understand what you're saying here, but I'll hazard a guess. If experience tells me anything it's the religious who are mad about having children. Being atheist tells me there are no mystical rules about life. Personally speaking, that's a liberating realisation! My body is mine to do with what I will and I'll strive to do that. Having children has no more significance than any other life choice in fact from my position even less so. That's my choice. Of course I shouldn't be so hubristic as to say that may not change but that's how I see things for now and not sure how that'll change. Why does that bother you so much?
    It seems to me that it's akin to a religious hangover i.e. before you thought things were grand and everlasting but now everything just is & that somehow diminishes life compared to
    what you thought when you assumed everything everlasting & fairies
    playing golden harps @ pearly gates... :p

    No.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    JimiTime wrote: »
    Indeed, but in reality, such an event can hit you harder than you could probably imagine. The futility of your purpose may alter your purpose, or indeed make you lose or ditch it.

    Possibly, but I guess that depends on what your purpose is.

    If for example you say I'm going to be rich and live in the south of France and your kid gets sick and you end up spending all your money on medical treatment then obviously your choosen purpose has been derailed. But I'm not sure may people would see the original purpose as particularly noble in the first place.

    You can't plan for everything but I think that simply highlights the futility of giving your life a purpose that is not particularly noble or that is based on specific circumstances. You see this all the time (in theists and atheists alike), people who think I will be happy if I just get this job, if I just move to that neighbourhood, if these people were just my friends, if my boss would just lay off me, if my kid just married the right girl, if my kid was straight not gay. A lot of people expect the world to make them happy, and just end up being miserable when the world ends up not doing its job properly :)

    Far better to say for example my purpose in life is to love and support my kids. What ever circumstances arise that is still an obtainable goal.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    If you ask most people I'll bet the reason they had children is not going to be
    "I had a biological imperative to have children" ;)

    The idea of a biological imperative as it would fall out of Dawkins selfish
    gene theory, as I understand it, is that human beings will do whatever it
    takes to pass their genes on to the next generation. You might get the
    idea that it's just a sinister ploy our genes are playing on us, and Dawkins
    has talked about how people would get that kind of an impression,
    especially from the title he's talked about wanting to change :p

    Well, I'm only hazarding a guess at this being a contributing factor to your
    thinking so I'll continue :) I have encountered this before so I apologise if
    I'm wrong, but think about what I'm saying anyway :cool:

    Genes don't think or plot, the idea of a biological imperative is very
    specific, it is an interpretation on what organisms do naturally.
    Genes have an imperative to get passed on to the next generation but
    that doesn't make having children out of love meaningless...
    You could call making love the most popular trait in all of
    history because it's the one action that definitely transcends most
    species & is one of the few traits that is consistently passed down through
    generations after generation - that is hardly meaningless...

    The only way you could be seriously making this argument, to me, about a
    biological imperative being the reason to have children, must be because of
    misunderstanding some Dawkins theory because if you're arguing that
    this is the reason why people have children & that it's not love, for the
    most part, I'd be astounded.
    Maybe you're arguing love is a trick that our genes play on us,
    I'm still a little unsure...

    Btw, as for the "just", I still don't understand why you'd want to call
    human pursuits meaningless... They mean a great deal to everyone &
    as posters in this thread continually point out it is the meaning you
    create for yourself that matters. To quote Joyce;

    "I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to
    forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    If you ask most people I'll bet the reason they had children is not going to be
    "I had a biological imperative to have children" ;)

    The idea of a biological imperative as it would fall out of Dawkins selfish
    gene theory, as I understand it, is that human beings will do whatever it
    takes to pass their genes on to the next generation. You might get the
    idea that it's just a sinister ploy our genes are playing on us, and Dawkins
    has talked about how people would get that kind of an impression,
    especially from the title he's talked about wanting to change :p

    Well, I'm only hazarding a guess at this being a contributing factor to your
    thinking so I'll continue :) I have encountered this before so I apologise if
    I'm wrong, but think about what I'm saying anyway :cool:

    Genes don't think or plot, the idea of a biological imperative is very
    specific, it is an interpretation on what organisms do naturally.
    Genes have an imperative to get passed on to the next generation but
    that doesn't make having children out of love meaningless...
    You could call making love the most popular trait in all of
    history because it's the one action that definitely transcends most
    species & is one of the few traits that is consistently passed down through
    generations after generation - that is hardly meaningless...

    The only way you could be seriously making this argument, to me, about a
    biological imperative being the reason to have children, must be because of
    misunderstanding some Dawkins theory because if you're arguing that
    this is the reason why people have children & that it's not love, for the
    most part, I'd be astounded.
    Maybe you're arguing love is a trick that our genes play on us,
    I'm still a little unsure...

    Btw, as for the "just", I still don't understand why you'd want to call
    human pursuits meaningless... They mean a great deal to everyone &
    as posters in this thread continually point out it is the meaning you
    create for yourself that matters. To quote Joyce;

    "I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to
    forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."

    I'm not really following the conversation so I'm not sure who is missing the point and who I'm agreeing with, but..

    "Love" is the biological imperative. We feel love for our partners and our kids because we have evolved this instinct in order to help protect them and ensure their continued survival.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Wicknight wrote: »
    "Love" is the biological imperative. We feel love for our partners and our kids because we have evolved this instinct in order to help protect them and ensure their continued survival.

    I would agree, so I wonder how this is meaningless...?

    If CerebralCortex meant love when (s)he said a biological imperative is
    as meaningless as anything else and is not enough justification for
    having a child then what s(he) is really saying is that love isn't a
    good enough reason to have children, but I doubt that is what (s)he
    was saying, that's why I was talking about Dawkins etc... :p


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭liamw


    I would agree, so I wonder how this is meaningless...?

    Ultimately everything is meaningless. Eventually all life, our planet and our sun will cease to exist. Something can only become apparently meaningful if you set a limited scope for it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭liamw


    If experience tells me anything it's the religious who are mad about having children.

    I totally agree with your view on having children. However I think the pressure to have children is not particularly religious, but a pressure from social conformity (I don't mean any offense), just like the pressure to be in a relationship and get married. These pressures derive from evolutionary sources, but in my mind have 'transformed' into social adherence. /derail


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    liamw wrote: »
    Ultimately everything is meaningless. Eventually all life, our planet and our sun will cease to exist. Something can only become apparently meaningful if you set a limited scope for it.

    That I most certainly do not agree with. That's just accepting finitude dressed up in fancy talk.
    I would agree, so I wonder how this is meaningless...?

    If CerebralCortex meant love when (s)he said a biological imperative is
    as meaningless as anything else and is not enough justification for
    having a child then what s(he) is really saying is that love isn't a
    good enough reason to have children, but I doubt that is what (s)he
    was saying, that's why I was talking about Dawkins etc... :p

    Well for a start I don't think love is a good enough reason to have children, and I also don't think it's always the reason people have children and there is certainly selfishness involved (I'm not trying to be acrimonious I do plenty of selfish things). When love is mentioned in a conversation it's a kind of "jumped the shark" moment anyway. Love in of itself isn't meaning it's an emotion. If you want to have children for the sake of love go ahead but it doesn't elevate it over any other activity we love to do. It's simply having children and enjoying it. I wouldn't stop you from doing it within reason but I don't have to agree with on the basis that it has some magical meaning or purpose. At least with other activities an unwitting agent/being/consciousness isn't brought into the mix.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,862 ✭✭✭mikhail




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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    Malty_T wrote: »
    Is there an ultimate meaning to life? If not, why do we actually proceed in living it?

    I've thought long and hard about this question and my conclusion is that the purpose of all humans is to create constant unending distractions for their minds so as to not think about their ultimate death.

    Whatever successfully distracts us enough we engage in until something can distract us more, whether it be getting drunk, laid, filling your mind with Gods and dogmas, educating yourself... etc. When death faces us or someone dies who is close to us (they have to be close to us right, nobody cares about all the children being beaten to death right now, our monkey brains don't have that kind of capacity) we quickly try to find distractions, and if we can't we kill ourselves, hurt ourselves or kill and hurt others.

    I can guarantee all the posters here saying: "Yo, I know I'm gonna die, but I'm cool with that, like, I'm real braw, I accept reality" are all under 30 (maybe 40's if your relatives have been living into their 80's). It's like when you are handed a bowl of Ice cream, when you see a full bowl in front of you, you are happy about it, but when it comes down to that last spoonfull you start thinking "wtf! where did it all go, I don't want this to be my last piece of ice cream"... well death is going to be like that, by a million.

    So read this post, think about a reply, maybe consider thanking it but then don't because of that "children getting beaten" remark. Keep yourself distracted, go for a walk, phone a friend, plan a holiday, make a baby, watch a movie, knock one out to free net porn... just keep yourself occupied right up until the moment you die and you will have succeeded in the game of life, by dying without having to think about it much.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 23 mr fog light


    if i run outta distractions(to use your term) i just feel bored and if someone close to me dies i feel depressed, then after a while i go on trying to enjoy life which is of course the ulimate aim of life. Killing myself or others would be a big no no for me.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    I've thought long and hard about this question and my conclusion is that the purpose of all humans is to create constant unending distractions for their minds so as to not think about their ultimate death.

    Whatever successfully distracts us enough we engage in until something can distract us more, whether it be getting drunk, laid, filling your mind with Gods and dogmas, educating yourself... etc. When death faces us or someone dies who is close to us (they have to be close to us right, nobody cares about all the children being beaten to death right now, our monkey brains don't have that kind of capacity) we quickly try to find distractions, and if we can't we kill ourselves, hurt ourselves or kill and hurt others.

    I can guarantee all the posters here saying: "Yo, I know I'm gonna die, but I'm cool with that, like, I'm real braw, I accept reality" are all under 30 (maybe 40's if your relatives have been living into their 80's). It's like when you are handed a bowl of Ice cream, when you see a full bowl in front of you, you are happy about it, but when it comes down to that last spoonfull you start thinking "wtf! where did it all go, I don't want this to be my last piece of ice cream"... well death is going to be like that, by a million.

    So read this post, think about a reply, maybe consider thanking it but then don't because of that "children getting beaten" remark. Keep yourself distracted, go for a walk, phone a friend, plan a holiday, make a baby, watch a movie, knock one out to free net porn... just keep yourself occupied right up until the moment you die and you will have succeeded in the game of life, by dying without having to think about it much.

    While I really like your post, I'd actually like to point out that I have already had two close death experiences (and almost a third one). And, I'm not talking I barely avoided the car from hitting me type experiences. I'm talking the ones where rather annoyingly your family members can pick the most inopportune time to recount such events to you. So do I qualify to make the argument that I'm cool with death and reality?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,824 ✭✭✭ShooterSF


    Malty_T wrote: »
    While I really like your post, I'd actually like to point out that I have already had two close death experiences (and almost a third one). And, I'm not talking I barely avoided the car from hitting me type experiences. I'm talking the ones where rather annoyingly your family members can pick the most inopportune time to recount such events to you. So do I qualify to make the argument that I'm cool with death and reality?

    No you've just gotten cocky and arrogant about avoiding it :P


    Please don't die any time soon as it will make that joke seem in bad taste


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 141 ✭✭lemonjelly


    We are only here to reproduce and hopefully enjoy, learn and love what we can about the amazing thing that is our existence.

    thats all.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭liamw


    That I most certainly do not agree with. That's just accepting finitude dressed up in fancy talk.

    Can you please explain why you don't agree with that point?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    liamw wrote: »
    Can you please explain why you don't agree with that point?
    That I most certainly do not agree with. That's just accepting finitude dressed up in fancy talk.


    Or more specifically, just arbitrarily attaching meaning to something.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,618 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    Or more specifically, just arbitrarily attaching meaning to something.
    Isn't that what we are all doing? No "third party" has assigned the human race a meaning, so that's the only option open to us if one feels having a purpose makes life better.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭liamw


    Or more specifically, just arbitrarily attaching meaning to something.

    I'm so confused now. I said:
    Something can only become apparently meaningful if you set a limited scope for it.

    So aren't we in agreement?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,397 ✭✭✭Herbal Deity


    liah wrote: »
    While I understand that it's all ultimately meaningless I don't see why it's a bad thing to assign my own meaning to it.
    But you didn't assign your own meaning to it, you just kinda redefined the word "meaning" to mean something like what you happen to do in your life.

    It kinda read a little like when certain people explain what "god" is to them.

    Not that there's anything wrong with living your life the way you do or anything, but I wouldn't confuse that with "meaning".
    If we dont make our own meaning, then we will have no reason to do anything.
    I disagree.


    I don't exactly know why I do anything I do. I don't feel the need to try and explain it in terms of "what life means to me" or similar wishy washyness.

    As long as I have the capacity to feel happiness, pleasure, suffering, boredom etc. I'm hardly going to just lie down and do nothing until I die just because I can't pinpoint any real purpose for doing anything I do.

    I mean, the simple answer to "why?" is that it's a lot more effort to kill yourself than to live your life.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    liamw wrote: »
    I'm so confused now. I said:



    So aren't we in agreement?

    No I don't think finitude as any intrinsic bearing on meaning. So we're not in agreement.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    I've thought long and hard about this question and my conclusion is that the purpose of all humans is to create constant unending distractions for their minds so as to not think about their ultimate death.

    .....

    "I'm real braw"?. I hope that's not a woeful attempt at scots. :D

    I don't know if I'd say I'm okay with death, I don't really want to die and nor do I want anyone else I love to die but I can still accept it happens and there is nothing I can say or do to stop it and so wailing and gnashing of teeth is pointless.

    I'm over 30 and I've lost plenty of people I really loved and if I'm honest rather than trying not to think about it, in a weird way death really fascinates me, I like thinking about it - to the point my career will leave me immersed in death & the dead. :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,780 ✭✭✭liamw


    No I don't think finitude as any intrinsic bearing on meaning. So we're not in agreement.

    There's a reason I used the word 'apparent'. I don't know what we disagree on, so let's agree to disagree on the point that you think we are in disagreement on.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Enkidu


    Btw, as for the "just", I still don't understand why you'd want to call
    human pursuits meaningless... They mean a great deal to everyone &
    as posters in this thread continually point out it is the meaning you
    create for yourself that matters. To quote Joyce;

    "I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to
    forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."
    I can appreciate your point of the use of the word just as a religious hang-over. One sees this many times:
    We're just apes on a planet orbiting a G2-class star. Which comes with the implicit "not glorious creations of a loving God".
    The truth is:
    We are apes on a planet orbiting a G2-class star. No need for the implicit value judgement from the word just.

    Similarly with this "meaningless" stuff.

    For instance let's say I like the computer game Doom. Ultimately Doom is a collection of Turing Machines which can be accepted as sub-machines within the universal Turing machine that is my home computer. I am some activity of my cerebral cortex and the rest of my brain, probably not a Turing machine, but that doesn't matter for this discussion. "Liking Doom" is then some subactivity of the function of my brain that is "me", based on information accrued from the large-scale behaviour of "Doom". (Large-scale, since my brain cannot percieve things quickly enough to appreciate the full functioning of the Turing machine).

    These are the bald facts of the situation. They are neither meaningless nor meaningful, they simply are. In fact I would view it as a category error, without our minds the only properties things have are their physical ones. Meaning or its absence is a property the human mind assigns to things, hence the only sensible question is does Doom have a meaning or a point to me? To which I can answer "Yes, I enjoy it", without the need for any brow furrowing over its ultimate meaning.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,811 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    liamw wrote: »
    There's a reason I used the word 'apparent'. I don't know what we disagree on, so let's agree to disagree on the point that you think we are in disagreement on.

    No problem sir! It's a philosophical quagmire.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    liamw wrote: »
    Ultimately everything is meaningless. Eventually all life, our planet and our sun will cease to exist. Something can only become apparently meaningful if you set a limited scope for it.

    How do you know all life will eventually cease to exist?
    50 years ago we didn't even know what powered the sun,
    we still don't know exactly how to deal with 3 bodies orbiting other
    in space yet you claim with absolute certainty that eventually all
    life will cease to exist? I can't help but see an almost religious certainty to
    that claim :pac:

    As for meaning, I hate to abuse the term "relativity" but you have to
    remember that meaning is relative to the human who comes into
    contact with it, kind of like beauty & a certain beholder :D

    I think you'll agree with me that we're simply :pac: a complicated
    assortment of the same material that makes up the rocks & trees and
    limescale you see around you everyday yet if you ask a rock what
    it's perspective on meaning is you'll be waiting quite a while for an answer,
    the idea of absolute meaning is a concept that doesn't make sense -
    we make our own meaning & we are certainly subject to that meaning
    being shaped & influenced by the way life is constructed around us.
    To me that is an unelievable idea & one that took a while to sink in,
    I mean just in the way operant conditioning can be used to get
    people with a fear of cars or clowns to conquer their fears there so
    too can the idea of no absolute meaning get people, like me, to rethink
    their whole life & take control to create, rather than be subject to,
    their future - within reason naturally :P

    Meaning to people just over 1000 years ago was how to live the rest of
    your life until the world ends @ midnight of 1000ad. Of course there is no
    such thing as absolute meaning but that in no way denigrates the idea
    for us as people
    .


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Well for a start I don't think love is a good enough reason to have children, and I also don't think it's always the reason people have children and there is certainly selfishness involved (I'm not trying to be acrimonious I do plenty of selfish things).

    If you think I'm trying to argue that people have children solely because
    of love then I think you're being extremely myopic.
    Maybe I shouldn't take it for granted.... Obviously most people who
    choose to have a child out of love will not have children solely because
    they love each other, there will be many other factors involved - will we
    be able for this, will I? will we be able to afford it, will I be able to afford it?
    Lets put it this way, you don't have a child because you hate life or
    hate children :pac:


    And, what's wrongwith selfishness? There's nothing wrong with selfishness
    as long as it's within certain bounds (imo!:P) Selfishness is a value
    judgement we make & people have different views on what's selfish.
    Even bats have an opinion on selfishness, look it up! Seriously! :D
    A woman having a child because of a maternal impulse she feels is not
    necessarily selfish unless you choose to label it as that but what you're
    doing is arguing she is selfish when she tells herself that this is
    the correct way to live - who are we to say that's selfish?

    It's like saying nature has given us feelings & we should fight the selfish
    impulses nature has given us because.. er... well I haven't heard a reason
    why we should :p I'd love to though ;)

    So, again I still think don't see any substance to your agument,
    viewing meaning as just a human emotion is just a misanthropic take
    on looking at reality - I see no reason to view meaning as just a
    human emotion but rather it is human emotion, a reason to live because
    we are free to construct our own meaning even when we're under
    fierce pressure from others to conform our perspective on what's
    meaningful to their view... It is a very serious distinction imo &
    psychologically makes all the difference in the world...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Enkidu wrote: »
    Meaning or its absence is a property the human mind assigns to things, hence the only sensible question is does Doom have a meaning or a point to me? To which I can answer "Yes, I enjoy it", without the need for any brow furrowing over its ultimate meaning.

    Yeah, I would agree with that but I would argue that the simpler the
    turing machine that created Doom the better :pac: I love the old ones :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,397 ✭✭✭Herbal Deity


    How do you know all life will eventually cease to exist?
    Entropy.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,550 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Malty_T wrote: »
    While I really like your post, I'd actually like to point out that I have already had two close death experiences (and almost a third one). And, I'm not talking I barely avoided the car from hitting me type experiences. I'm talking the ones where rather annoyingly your family members can pick the most inopportune time to recount such events to you. So do I qualify to make the argument that I'm cool with death and reality?

    You might be conflating facing death and having a near death experience. A very close call like a car smash doesn't involve you actually facing death in a way you can consciously appreciate. You might go into heightened alert mode. Or else you wake up afterwards with no memory of it but know that it was a close call. Facing death isn't the same thing as "I could have died then"

    Facing death would be altogether a slower moving affair. When you get the chance to ponder on the significance of it - not in an abstract way like is done here. But in a rubber is about to meet the road kind of way. It's safe to say that the vast majority of people who face death in this consciously appreciative way end up actually dying.


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