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Human Life

Lark

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Jun 21, 2009
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29,569
Human life is limited, our goals will be frustrated, we are not self-sufficient and autonomous.

Do you consider this to be objectively true? I'm listening to a podcast which suggests that many philosophical and commonplace views of humanity are in fact arrogant and refuse to face the facts of human life and thought I'd solicit views, as I do, of everyone who visits the forum.

Can you say if you do or dont agree with this statement and why, is it to do with life experience, political philosophy, general philosophy, religion, ideology, what?
 

gromit

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Mar 3, 2010
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I guess I agree with it, but I don't really think it's the whole picture. That would be kind of depressing if that were the case.

Our life is limited, yes, but consciousness is sort of amazing, and the things that we do within our lifespan can be meaningful to us. Our goals will be frustrated, yes, but not all of them, and not all the time. We are not self-sufficient or autonomous, I guess not. We depend on our parents and other adults when we are young, on friends and families for emotional support when we're grown, on farmers for our food, on engineers for our transportation, on others to make us laugh to hold us when we cry. We aren't necessarily autonomous in that there's a portion of us determined by our background and genetics, but I guess there is some degree of will, if that's what you're asking. We just have to be careful in judging the autonomy of other people.

I'd say it mostly has to do with life experience and my personal philosophy/ideology.
 

nolla

Senor Membrane
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May 22, 2008
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This reminds me of the thread I started about Big Bang determining everything. We are going to a direction and our actions are based on our experiences that are based on our previous states of mind which are based on genes eventually and then it all goes back back back to the first living cell, which wouldn't have been there without the right ingredients, which have been circling around in space from the time of Big Bang.

Anyhow, none of this matters, since I can't perceive it. Even if I am going to a certain direction and if you could see the four dimensions, you could see time as a part of the spaces, it would be some definite object of time-space of which I am incredibly small part, even then, it would not matter, because I am inside that time-space object, scanning it linearly, and don't see that no matter what I decide, it is all that there ever was as an option. I have free will from my subjective perspective, but objectively, I don't. And that objectivity, btw, is a subjective idea too. So, subjectivity is all there is.
 

KilgoreTrout

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Jul 28, 2010
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I'm listening to a podcast which suggests that many philosophical and commonplace views of humanity are in fact arrogant and refuse to face the facts of human life

Can you say if you do or dont agree with this statement and why, is it to do with life experience, political philosophy, general philosophy, religion, ideology, what?

I absolutely agree with this statement and I suppose I will call it general philosophy. I think that all facets of society stem from arrogance and a refusal to accept ourselves as part of the natural world. Most religions and philosophy place humans as second to omnipotent deities or name us masters of the world while we do nothing but waste and squander. If we accepted the facts of human life we would think ahead to preservation of our species by conserving the limited resources we have. I think we are closer to dying off than we realize.

My ethics professor said something that had a chilling effect, "You think the oil wars are bad? Wait until the water wars."

SCARY!
 

Lark

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Jun 21, 2009
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I absolutely agree with this statement and I suppose I will call it general philosophy. I think that all facets of society stem from arrogance and a refusal to accept ourselves as part of the natural world. Most religions and philosophy place humans as second to omnipotent deities or name us masters of the world while we do nothing but waste and squander. If we accepted the facts of human life we would think ahead to preservation of our species by conserving the limited resources we have. I think we are closer to dying off than we realize.

My ethics professor said something that had a chilling effect, "You think the oil wars are bad? Wait until the water wars."

SCARY!

See the water wars are already under way, it was phase two of the cola wars, it took a long time before the bottling of water was accepted by the developed world where government ownership of water and structural provision was really good, although under investment and privatisation has changed that. So has some of the fitness consciousness.

However water is also used in production, not just soft drinks, juices and other drinks but food. Food production is political in ways that people dont realise, meat consumption in the developed world leads to slash and burn in the developing world, animals consume water, even during droughts and the waste from the animals destroys the Ph levels in the soil, meaning that crops and other root systems dont develop, resulting in floods.

The agribusinesses of the US, the cola companies, well, coca cola, and I think a single French water company representing Euro interests are already carving up the southern hemisphere which because of historical disadvantage hasnt been able to behave as protectionist as the developed world. This is what is going on in the successive rounds of trade talks every time the G20 or Brettons Woods agencies get around the table.

There isnt anything like a systems consciousness with mankind, its far and away a much greater thing than simple social conscience and gives me a headache even thinking about it. The stores in starship earth are running low.
 

Lark

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Jun 21, 2009
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I'll add that while I dont buy and like a lot of the arrogance in some conceptualisations of human kind and human life I also think that anti-humanism and earth first thinking is not a good thing, there are objective reasons for believing that mankind are the masters of the universe :)laugh:) but instead of seeing it as entitling it should be seen as saddling us with big responsibilities.
 

Lark

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Jun 21, 2009
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How so? (Pure curiosity, not trying to be argumentative)

We're part of the ecosystem, eradicating or vastly reducing our numbers like some of the earth first fringe believe would be a good thing would wreck it just the same as if present trends go on uncorrected.

To me its like the mentality which leads to performing animals, zoo animals or test subjects being "liberated" only to die terrible deaths in the wild, sometimes a short, short time after their "liberation".
 
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