Trying to Change the World as a Source of Our Problems?

[Eodnhoj7]

We are all taught (for the most part), at a young age, to go out and change the world. We are taught this through parents, friends, social media (which has changed throughout the years due to technology, but has remained a constant within these years) and a variety of other sources.

And in looking at the various grades of division and chaos throughout the world (whether it be the division between friends, spouses, or all out physical warfare) we have seen how "well" this idea has worked in structuring not just the world but our lives as well.

We see innumerable people suffer because of this idea, and we are all guilty of it in some measure.

But what we fail to see, in projecting ourselves on to the exterior world, that we in ourselves are "worlds" because of these people. Every act of kindness and cruelty, however simple or complex, has played some part in forming who we are. We in turn project this identity onto the world, merely replicating what we are told to do without and thought to it. However we forget, and "forget" may be the best of words, because of the constant noise and disorder around us, that we are also responsible for our own actions as we are worlds in and of themselves.

Each individual, due to there complex relations with others in both quality and number, is in themselves complex and because of this complexity "the other" is not fully known except through the self.

If we are to know other's, we must first remember to know ourselves. In doing so, we must change ourselves to be more honest (even if it hurts), kind, and just as from these things comes the "meaning" we are after. For what is meaning but a sense of "balance" or "equilibrium" where existence itself is "truth"?

We are our own judges, juries and executioner's because of our ability to measure reality and give it function and form in some manner or another. In these respects we are all Son's and Daughter's of a Divine Plan in which we are just a small part that simultaneously contains everything in it because of its source.

To change the self, is to change a world for the self is a universe in itself, with this universe affecting all other universes around it.

What if the world taught us the wrong thing simply because we chose to forget who we are? And in this act of forgetting take a role of a god and form "being" through "nothing"?

[Veritas Aequitas]

Theists are trying to change the concept of the World to an unreal one.
One of the most serious problem is where theists try to change and impose their false theistic views of the World on everyone.

The most effective solution is for all to reflect inward, understand what is going inside one's brain and change its neural connectivity in a fool proof approach.

[surreptitious57]

I have absolutely no interest in changing the world for that is something beyond my capabilities
I can only change myself so that is what I focus on even though it is an eternal work in progress

[TimeSeeker]

Theists are trying to change the concept of the World to an unreal one.
One of the most serious problem is where theists try to change and impose their false theistic views of the World on everyone.

You sound like an authoritarian justifying their world-view. Irrespective of the truth-value or 'realness' of your world-view imposition is imposition.

You may be imposing Moral Utopia and others are free to reject it. Many wars have been started by people doing "the right thing for all of us"...

[surreptitious57]

Many wars have been started by people doing the right thing for all of us

No point having free will when you let someone else do your thinking for you now is there

[-1-]

I have absolutely no interest in changing the world for that is something beyond my capabilities
I can only change myself so that is what I focus on even though it is an eternal work in progress

Butterfly effect... if you don't change your breakfast cereal or don't change your socks every day, or don't change your philosophy to believing in free will, there will be in a thousand years five hundred billion TimeSeeker philosophical doppelgangers ganging up on the few reasonable people on philosophy websites available to intergalactic Starnet users.

In other words (not the same thing, but another thing in other words) : You can only change the world if you manage to change it... which means, going back in time and making changes in the PAST as it would shape our history to get to the present. With a straight-line time passage of history or events in time, nobody can change the world. At least not change the world in the set path that it is set do develop and keep on changing.

In other words: you can't change the changes... changes could only be changed if you had free will.

[TimeSeeker]

I have absolutely no interest in changing the world for that is something beyond my capabilities
I can only change myself so that is what I focus on even though it is an eternal work in progress

Butterfly effect... if you don't change your breakfast cereal or don't change your socks every day, or don't change your philosophy to believing in free will, there will be in a thousand years five hundred billion TimeSeeker philosophical doppelgangers ganging up on the few reasonable people on philosophy websites available to intergalactic Starnet users.

In other words (not the same thing, but another thing in other words) : You can only change the world if you manage to change it... which means, going back in time and making changes in the PAST as it would shape our history to get to the present. With a straight-line time passage of history or events in time, nobody can change the world. At least not change the world in the set path that it is set do develop and keep on changing.

In other words: you can't change the changes... changes could only be changed if you had free will.

Fear not the five hundred billion dopplegangers! Ever heard of the Pareto principle? 20% of causes are responsible for 80% of the results. Which 20%? Well, if I told you that - I'd be giving up my trade secrets

But on a serious note. We do have tools to measure and optimise effectiveness and trajectory of impact for various strategies. Monte Carlo simulations. Ergodic theory.

Until everybody learns how to use them, at which point you'll need better tools to have a competitive advantage again (but by that point the world would have changed for the better). In theory anyway.

May the most unreasonable person win!

[-1-]

Many wars have been started by people doing the right thing for all of us

No point having free will when you let someone else do your thinking for you now is there

Will and thinking are different concepts... independent of each other. I can't will not to think, and I also can't will what to think. I can't will to think this or that, but I can will to not act on my thoughts.

So if others are willing to do the work of changing the world for me, for instance by starting wars or preventing them or preempting them, then I am able to will to think it's good or bad, and I can also will not to do anything about it cooperatively or by sabotaging it.

This excursion of mine still does not give a point to having a free will, much like there is no point in giving wings to pigs or to water buffaloes. The point being, that in the final analysis*, nothing man-made has a point. Okay, needles and daggers can pr!ck my skin, but hey, I just evolve into a porcupine or hedge-hog and as a hog, I'll be entitled to a couple of free wings.

* Not to be mistaken for final solution. Final analysis I support; final solution, I don't.

[gaffo]

We are all taught (for the most part), at a young age, to go out and change the world. We are taught this through parents, friends, social media (which has changed throughout the years due to technology, but has remained a constant within these years) and a variety of other sources.

And in looking at the various grades of division and chaos throughout the world (whether it be the division between friends, spouses, or all out physical warfare) we have seen how "well" this idea has worked in structuring not just the world but our lives as well.

indeed - it s an ego boosting narcisistic wet dream parents preach to their kids to boost the later's ego.

simple math - 7 billion vs 1 - would for a clear minded kid - show their parents are full of shit.


i.e. with 7 bill - plus one or minus one - is nothing, so no one cannot change the world when there are 70 yrs of counting the 7 billion others.

[TryingMyBest]

From the OP:
"To change the self, is to change a world for the self is a universe in itself, with this universe affecting all other universes around it."

TMB:
I flipped your reasoning around. I now see myself as "good" and therefore see all of humanity and reality likewise as "good." I have found that in decidedly seeing myself as "good" I must also attribute this quality to the rest of humanity and to the universe. I think that the cruel actions I, and others, have taken were based in a flawed view that others can be "bad." That is why my current belief is that the statement that "humans can exist as evil entities" is false. If I'm right, then the realization of this fact should spread and change humanity for the better.

I still believe in being able to change the world. Thanks for your post.