What really matters?

For all things philosophical.

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Greta
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Re: What really matters?

Post by Greta »

Dalek Prime wrote:Everyone feel better, now, having slain the dragon of truth? You folks are like cave people huddled around a campfire of love to keep out the bugaboos of the unknown.
Obvious psychological projection - projecting your fearfulness on to us. The negativity bias is a defensive mechanism that we evolved because negative stakes, ie. death, are higher than positive ones.

Crises aside, positivity is more rational than negativity. The problem of suffering is one of immaturity. Logically, if the universe has been developing for 13.8 billion years and its Stelliferous Era is anticipated to last about a trillion years, then the universe has lived about 1% of its productive life. That makes it a relative toddler with great potential to move beyond today's problems. This is why Lacewing was talking about being excited by the possibilities.

Do we judge toddlers for behaving badly or do we understand their limitations? We are all babies on the slow road towards learning how to cooperate to mutual benefit. Like babies, we are impatient and cannot accept that some things - like evolution and civilisation - take time to develop. So we complain loudly - like babies do - when we don't get our way.

Yes, everything is flawed. What did you expect? Is there another time in history aside from last century that you'd want to live in? Progress is not perfectly linear - sometimes there are backward steps, as is happening today. People assume that the temporary backward stage we are going through is reflective of the whole. Nope. You and yours might have no future, but humanity itself will most likely continue to thrive.
Dubious wrote:To me the human race literally started off as a localized cancer that went into metastasis and infected the entire organism which hosts it. Cancer has always been preeminent in its power to overcome and even destroy the things that would cure it.
We aren't parasites, we are the biosphere reshaping itself. It is clearly undergoing undergoing metamorphosis. Just as tadpoles lose structures, whose material is used to make new ones, so does the biosphere. It's done it plenty of times before.

Again this is negativity bias blinding us to the obvious. A parasite reduces and kills off larger systems, reducing them to retrograde, simpler ones. Metamorphosis involves replacing simpler structures with more complex ones better adapted for the new life.

Just because we think that nature is beautiful doesn't mean that nature itself is enjoying the show - the suffering of wild animals is beyond belief. We might wax romantic about nature as a lion tears the guts out of antelope, but the whole affair obviously hurts like hell. So I figure that humanity is, no doubt amongst other things, an expression of the biosphere's mindless drive to survive and avoid suffering.

Humans inflict a lot of suffering on other species (and each other at times) but we are damn good at insulating ourselves from dangers and giving ourselves long stable and peaceful stretches of life. I think that the biosphere itself has this same mindless and reflexive survival/comfort drive, which has been passed to its inhabitants.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: What really matters?

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Skip wrote:What's important?
Most people will immediately think in personal terms and say - my family, my marriage, my security, my art, my state of mind - my something. And that's true; those personal issues do require the majority of our effort and concern.

But, look outside - farther. What really matters in the world?
What's important enough to spend a lot of time thinking about?
What's worth composing a lot of sentences, absorbing insults, repeating, explaining, to try to communicate?
What's worth a lot of effort trying to bring about, or to stop or to change?
The human race seeking equilibrium, the type of balance that assures it's continuance. As much as the universe shall allow, of course.

Was that the kind of answer you're looking for?
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: What really matters?

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Wow, I only read the OP when I first respond to a topic. Imagine my surprise glancing at the response immediately above my first response, immediately above this one, wow! So I guess it must be a real concern, and rightfully so!
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: What really matters?

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Dalek Prime wrote:Nothing really matters,
Nothing really matters,
Nothing really matters,
To meeeeeee....
...any way the wind blows...

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Dalek Prime
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Re: What really matters?

Post by Dalek Prime »

SpheresOfBalance wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote:Nothing really matters,
Nothing really matters,
Nothing really matters,
To meeeeeee....
...any way the wind blows...

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Ah, I see what you're trying to get at now, in some clever way of yours. No, it doesn't fit. I wrote what I wrote specifically to bring attention to the fact that, as life is suffering, people should pay a little more attention to bringing others into it. I was rubbing salt in their wound. As I didn't have a choice to exist, reflecting "life's not fair/suck it up" back at me is not a symmetry. Nice try though. :roll:

Existants have to suck it up. Having to suck it up is a part of suffering. Nonexistents have nothing to suck up. It's all blissful nothingness.
Last edited by Dalek Prime on Fri Feb 05, 2016 3:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Obvious Leo
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Re: What really matters?

Post by Obvious Leo »

Dalek Prime wrote:as life is suffering,
Speak for yourself, misery-guts. Mine's a barrel of laughs.
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Re: What really matters?

Post by Dalek Prime »

Obvious Leo wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote:as life is suffering,
Speak for yourself, misery-guts. Mine's a barrel of laughs.
So's mine. Doesn't remove suffering from existence, Polly. But heck, as long as you're not suffering or feeling anyone else's, fuck everyone else, eh?

What's really bugging you today, Leo?
Skip
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Re: What really matters?

Post by Skip »

Yet, most of us biological anomalies try to put off blissful oblivion as long as possible.
One of the things I've advocated fairly energetically for was the right to die. We [Canadians] are supposed to be getting some carefully limited access to that right....

..... never mind the dozen somewhat bitter ironies in that statement ....

... in time for when I need to exercise it. This makes me feel good for myself, even worse than I did before for the people who have been denied it all this time, and a tiny bit hopeful that this is a baby-step toward full autonomy for those ready to exit. At the same time, I'm in no particular hurry: the baling wire and duct-tape are still holding.

We have a very peculiar relationship with life!
Obvious Leo
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Re: What really matters?

Post by Obvious Leo »

Dalek Prime wrote:
Obvious Leo wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote:as life is suffering,
Speak for yourself, misery-guts. Mine's a barrel of laughs.
So's mine. Doesn't remove suffering from existence, Polly. But heck, as long as you're not suffering or feeling anyone else's, fuck everyone else, eh?

What's really bugging you today, Leo?
Nothing's bugging me except the implication that I have no empathy for the suffering of others. I do my best to alleviate suffering wherever I can and I accept that a certain amount of suffering is part and parcel of the human condition. Nevertheless I choose not to have suffering beatified as the defining principle of my existence but prefer to regard it as an inconvenient by-product.
Skip wrote:One of the things I've advocated fairly energetically for was the right to die.
I wasn't aware of the fact that it is unlawful to die in Canada. Have there been many successful prosecutions?
Dubious
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Re: What really matters?

Post by Dubious »

Obvious Leo wrote:
I wasn't aware of the fact that it is unlawful to die in Canada. Have there been many successful prosecutions?
It's only lawful when you are officially retired, receiving a pension and no-longer or hardly paying any taxes. It's then that the government would appreciate your cooperation since you're no-longer cost effective.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: What really matters?

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Dalek Prime wrote:
Lacewing wrote:
Greta wrote:The more we love, the more we learn and understand. The more we learn and understand, the more we love.
I love this. :D Makes wonderful sense to me.

Yes, there is so much about the future (and our continual unfolding) that can be extraordinarily exciting and interesting. A brilliant creation!
It may be exciting and all, but its still ridiculous, means nothing, and when the final curtain falls, accomplishes nothing.
You the authority? That's a joke! As if you actually could speak for anyone other than yourself.

Romanticise it all you want as brilliant, but it's not.
Incorrect! Rather it's not for you, but then who are you really? From the universal perspective, simply a gnat or maybe an ant!

And way to go for dragging future generations into your absurdity.
Again, your sense of things matters not to anyone but you, and maybe a few other whiners.

Know what else is exciting? Being chased by a mad dog with snapping jaws.
Because of your fear! I for one fear, no singular dog, except for it's life?

Excitement can be shit, too.
Things can be anything to anyone, and no one speaks for everyone! The ones that believe otherwise, play with themselves far too much.
Skip
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Re: What really matters?

Post by Skip »

Obvious Leo wrote: I wasn't aware of the fact that it is unlawful to die in Canada. Have there been many successful prosecutions?
Please don't be a jerk about this. It matters.
People suffer horribly, for months or years, because the law - or rather, a ass called The Law - prevents them getting the help they need to end it, when they are physically incapable or institutionalized and restrained. I know of one woman who, on her fourth and finally successful try, stuffed a hospital bed-sheet down her throat. There are many messy, risky, undignified and shameful ways to end one's life, and people resort to those when sensible avenues are closed by self-righteous assholes who think they're channeling some assholish god.

And, yes, there have certainly been hideously successful persecutions of unsuccessful suicides.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: What really matters?

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Dalek Prime wrote:
Lacewing wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote: It may be exciting and all, but its still ridiculous, means nothing, and when the final curtain falls, accomplishes nothing. Romanticise it all you want as brilliant, but it's not. And way to go for dragging future generations into your absurdity.
Well, I agree with you that it's also ridiculous and means nothing ultimately... but isn't that kind of the brilliance of it? It doesn't NEED to accomplish anything. It's a freaking free-for-all of experience... profoundly creative... like intricate sand sculptures that use up so much energy, only to be washed away in moments by the sea. So we experience each moment... and there are all sorts of possibilities for doing so... and then it transforms into something else. What would be more brilliant?

(Oh, and way to go for dragging future generations into your limited cranky view. :) )
I don't have kids. How am I responsible for dragging future generations into it? Think before you write crap.
That her words went over your head is apparently par for your course, or so your usual dialogue seemingly indicates.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: What really matters?

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Dalek Prime wrote:
Lacewing wrote:
Dalek Prime wrote: I don't have kids. How am I responsible for dragging future generations into it? Think before you write crap.
Well I don't have kids either... so why did you write your crap?
Because you're encouraging people to have them with your bullshit romantic notions of life, you prat.
The reciprocal back at you, numb nuts! In this case gonads are synonymous with your mind.

Now shut up and accept responsibility for your beliefs.
Again, back at you! If only you were capable of intellectual thought.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: What really matters?

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Obvious Leo wrote:Whenever you're feeling a bit down in the dumps tune into the thoughts of Dalek, the music to slash your wrists to. What a miserable, curmudgeonly, cantankerous Canuck you are, mate. Perhaps a laxative might help.
Come on Leo, then he'd be a vegetable! ;)
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