The Most Fundamental Truth

Can philosophers help resolve the real problems that people have in their lives?

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Gary Childress
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The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Gary Childress »

There is one ideal in life, to find mates to love and have children with those mates. That is the be-all and end-all of being--to create more beings to follow us in order to perpetuate our organic programming. That is the most fundamental thing our instincts desire. Everything else is a perversion of our natural inclinations that leads to profound dissatisfaction with life. Natural forces want us to procreate, when we go against that force we live in disharmony. There is no rational sentient God, only natural impulse and programming. Nature is self-replicating and it is only successful if it replicates. That which doesn't replicate is dysfunctional at its most fundamental level and will always be in disharmony and lack balance in life.

I have discovered that I am not a viable being. I don't want children because I judge that this world is not worthy of living in. It is a judgment I have arrived at through the experience of substantial disharmony in life. Disharmony is its own defect and if a natural being cannot replicate successfully, then it cannot replicate successfully.

Getting beyond this disharmony requires a leap of faith for an individual--a leap in knowledge and experience that will bring an individual to the point of creating more life. However, if one takes that leap of faith, then one becomes knowingly complicit in the suffering of another organism of low viability if that leap of faith proves to be unfounded.

This is like a fail-safe mechanism, a gateway to reproduction that can be shut off when life ceases to be viable for a complex organism.

Human beings are the most complex beings that we humans are aware of at this point. Human beings are able to judge life as not worth living or not worth bringing another one of us into the world. At a fundamental level are single-cell organisms and bacteria that function ONLY to reproduce, to replicate. Presumably, bacteria do not stop, hesitate, and judge whether their life is worth living. They simply replicate, carrying out a mechanical program ingrained in it.

I, Gary Childress, have come to the conclusion that I live immersed in a world of dysfunction. "Dysfunction" is nothing more and nothing less than sub-optimal operation for a living being. It is neither "good" nor "bad", neither "righteous" nor "evil". It merely is.

The Bible is fiction. And yet, there is no good reason to declare it so. There is only the desire to declare it so, because it is what it is and that is what it is.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:30 pm There is one ideal in life, to find mates to love and have children with those mates.
"There is but one ideal in life of cats: to find mates and to produce kittens with those mates."

Not much of an ideal...merely to keep the species going, with no larger purpose than that.
Gary Childress
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:38 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:30 pm There is one ideal in life, to find mates to love and have children with those mates.
"There is but one ideal in life of cats: to find mates and to produce kittens with those mates."

Not much of an ideal...merely to keep the species going, with no larger purpose than that.
Your own defense is to deflate or deny the truth we live in because you cannot live harmoniously without that delusion. You cannot transcend it or get outside of it without substantial cost. But you will only discover that there is death at the end of the trail and that is final. The healthiest, most harmonious rebel against such a conclusion because it is the most unnatural and disharmonious belief, the truth. Complex life cannot live in harmony with the truth of being. It must distort it in order to live and create. In the end, it's as if someone read Twain's, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and then came to the conclusion that it was somehow the most profound story of living. But a story is not a fact of the material world. It will never be a fact of the material world.

¯\_(*_*)_/¯
Gary Childress
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Gary Childress »

And it is true that in culture and thought we have achieved more than raw reproduction, or replication. But that achievement is founded upon a fantasy that exists nowhere except in our neural "circuits" and biological "hardware". We feel pain and we feel remorse and those things are very real, but they are products of that which must replicate n order to continue to be. Because if it did not feel those things, it would not continue. And it serves no function to replication to come to this realization, it only serves dysfunction. Again, it is only dysfunction of the organism that cannot find a reason to continue to replicate. It is the most absurd truth, but it is not fiction.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:46 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:38 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:30 pm There is one ideal in life, to find mates to love and have children with those mates.
"There is but one ideal in life of cats: to find mates and to produce kittens with those mates."

Not much of an ideal...merely to keep the species going, with no larger purpose than that.
Your own defense is to deflate or deny the truth we live in...blah, blah, blah...
Sorry, Gary...just had to point out how utterly absurd that claim is. Talk about reductional explanations, that's a real prize example.
Gary Childress
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 4:19 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:46 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:38 pm
"There is but one ideal in life of cats: to find mates and to produce kittens with those mates."

Not much of an ideal...merely to keep the species going, with no larger purpose than that.
Your own defense is to deflate or deny the truth we live in...blah, blah, blah...
Sorry, Gary...just had to point out how utterly absurd that claim is. Talk about reductional explanations, that's a real prize example.
Very well. You will never understand, and there's nothing "wrong" with that except that it is non-factual. Enjoy your ride.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 4:36 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 4:19 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:46 pm
Your own defense is to deflate or deny the truth we live in...blah, blah, blah...
Sorry, Gary...just had to point out how utterly absurd that claim is. Talk about reductional explanations, that's a real prize example.
Very well. You will never understand,
Don't flatter yourself. I understand. In that claim, however, there's not much worth understanding.
Gary Childress
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 5:02 pm Don't flatter yourself.
Strange, you seem to be the one flattering yourself. I would hardly call my account "self flattering".
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Dontaskme
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

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nemos
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by nemos »

Man voluntarily renounces his participation in the evolutionary process, leaving the runway to declare himself a resource for others. I see nothing criminal in that, because after all it is his birthright. And that's how evolution works - only those who are alive participate and everything else serves as a resource.

In any case, given the excessive growth of the human population, we should not force someone who is not quite sure to have children. Because children not only need to be created, they also need to be nurtured, something that only confident people can pull off.
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bahman
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by bahman »

Gary Childress wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:30 pm There is one ideal in life, to find mates to love and have children with those mates. That is the be-all and end-all of being--to create more beings to follow us in order to perpetuate our organic programming. That is the most fundamental thing our instincts desire. Everything else is a perversion of our natural inclinations that leads to profound dissatisfaction with life. Natural forces want us to procreate, when we go against that force we live in disharmony. There is no rational sentient God, only natural impulse and programming. Nature is self-replicating and it is only successful if it replicates. That which doesn't replicate is dysfunctional at its most fundamental level and will always be in disharmony and lack balance in life.

I have discovered that I am not a viable being. I don't want children because I judge that this world is not worthy of living in. It is a judgment I have arrived at through the experience of substantial disharmony in life. Disharmony is its own defect and if a natural being cannot replicate successfully, then it cannot replicate successfully.

Getting beyond this disharmony requires a leap of faith for an individual--a leap in knowledge and experience that will bring an individual to the point of creating more life. However, if one takes that leap of faith, then one becomes knowingly complicit in the suffering of another organism of low viability if that leap of faith proves to be unfounded.

This is like a fail-safe mechanism, a gateway to reproduction that can be shut off when life ceases to be viable for a complex organism.

Human beings are the most complex beings that we humans are aware of at this point. Human beings are able to judge life as not worth living or not worth bringing another one of us into the world. At a fundamental level are single-cell organisms and bacteria that function ONLY to reproduce, to replicate. Presumably, bacteria do not stop, hesitate, and judge whether their life is worth living. They simply replicate, carrying out a mechanical program ingrained in it.

I, Gary Childress, have come to the conclusion that I live immersed in a world of dysfunction. "Dysfunction" is nothing more and nothing less than sub-optimal operation for a living being. It is neither "good" nor "bad", neither "righteous" nor "evil". It merely is.

The Bible is fiction. And yet, there is no good reason to declare it so. There is only the desire to declare it so, because it is what it is and that is what it is.
Well, we are in deep shit if there is no meaning in life! We are in deeper shit if there is a life after death!
Impenitent
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Impenitent »

bahman wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 5:01 pm
Well, we are in deep shit if there is no meaning in life! We are in deeper shit if there is a life after death!
the most fundamental truth

if life is shit, get a shovel or be a pig

-Imp
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bahman
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by bahman »

Impenitent wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 7:46 pm
bahman wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 5:01 pm
Well, we are in deep shit if there is no meaning in life! We are in deeper shit if there is a life after death!
the most fundamental truth

if life is shit, get a shovel or be a pig

-Imp
I have put shit somewhere else, in other people's places, if I use a shovel. I am not selfish and I am not a pig. So I have to suffer for other people's sake.
Impenitent
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by Impenitent »

bahman wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 7:58 pm
Impenitent wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 7:46 pm
bahman wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 5:01 pm
Well, we are in deep shit if there is no meaning in life! We are in deeper shit if there is a life after death!
the most fundamental truth

if life is shit, get a shovel or be a pig

-Imp
I have put shit somewhere else, in other people's places, if I use a shovel. I am not selfish and I am not a pig. So I have to suffer for other people's sake.
no, you are putting up with their shit and that is no way to live

2 cents

-Imp
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bahman
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Re: The Most Fundamental Truth

Post by bahman »

Impenitent wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 8:05 pm
bahman wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 7:58 pm
Impenitent wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 7:46 pm

the most fundamental truth

if life is shit, get a shovel or be a pig

-Imp
I have put shit somewhere else, in other people's places, if I use a shovel. I am not selfish and I am not a pig. So I have to suffer for other people's sake.
no, you are putting up with their shit and that is no way to live

2 cents

-Imp
I don't want constant fighting and prefer inner peace in spite of the fact that people put shit on my life. People just don't have any respect. What you are going to do with them!?
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