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| Thread: Love, Sex and Evolved Monkeys |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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JollyJoker
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posted May 01, 2009 03:55 PM |
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The only thing I'm pretty sure of is that nature left humans with a sex drive and mothers with a drive to care for what's growing in their womb.
"Love" MAY be a mix of different things a lot more basic than what Love amounts to, which would explain quite different forms of "love". For example, the love a child would feel for their parents would be based on the feeling of "Geborgenheit" (a German word with no English equivalent: it means feeling secure and cared for), and maybe a couple of others, while the love a FATHER has for his child may be based on pride (in a positive sense) and wonderment and a mirroring of what he feels for his wife (and probably a couple more).
Whether there would be THE (mystical) REAL love, that would be more than just the sum of the constituent emotions, that's a question of belief, I'd wager. Of course there might just be a magical cocktail of feelings like that, but that's belief.
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TheDeath
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posted May 01, 2009 06:41 PM |
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Edited by TheDeath at 18:42, 01 May 2009.
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Do people urinate in a utopia? Do they sweat? How can you have a society without producing waste?
Sorry I used wrong terms.
I was speaking about the pleasure associated with urinating or eliminating waste (excrements), which by itself, is unneeded. Notice that this is NOT waste, because it is pleasure associated with something required -- just like sex, which is associated with procreation. This is why nature outsmarts people, in some cases, in my opinion.
And of course, if in an Utopia we would be granted a way to get rid of these activities (via let's say, genetical engineering), we should do it -- even though by definition, we'll get rid of the 'pleasure' associated with it, but then again, it would be better (by waste ofc).
There was a long essay some neurologist guy called Tom Tobias posted on a programming forum a while back regarding this 'pleasure' (about excrementing/urinating I mean). I'm not sure if it was deleted.
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Death : are you saying pleasures are bad?
you want the humanity to become robots or what?
from what I understand, your vision of utopia would be a very bland world.
See? This is the problem. What do you mean by 'bland'? If anything, such an Utopia would make us open our eyes to greater things.
After all, cavemen had the same pleasures as us. So our lives are as bland as cavemens, since pleasure is all that matters? No, the more we evolve intellectually/mentally, the more we see the real beauties of life, and not waste. 
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Death:
The reason we don't go into a Matrix world is that something might go wrong.
ROFL
That is the same kind of thinking as "The reason I don't trust computers in performing calculations is that something might go wrong."
and indeed there were such people 
@JJ: well in my opinion, it is very difficult to explain it, but easier with examples -- I hope you know what I mean. I gave an example of what is love before, with that guy's response of the asexual girl. (take notice: it is such feeling as "I don't care" that makes it so).
Another example of love without *background noise*.
The reason I excluded sex from my examples is because we are analyzing love, and so I tried to 'ignore' the sex part simply because when you analyze an object you need to get rid of the background noise or anything that is irrelevant to it, if you want to discover anything (like in science).
These people may also play games, for example, or other mental challenges. But those also have nothing to do with love, so I excluded such background noise.
Hope you can see what I mean.
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Corribus
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posted May 01, 2009 08:22 PM |
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@Death
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I was speaking about the pleasure associated with urinating or eliminating waste (excrements), which by itself, is unneeded. Notice that this is NOT waste, because it is pleasure associated with something required -- just like sex, which is associated with procreation. This is why nature outsmarts people, in some cases, in my opinion.
Sorry, I don't mean this in a mean way at all, but your posts are just very cryptic. I don't really understand the point you're trying to make. Could you try to clarify, please?
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And of course, if in an Utopia we would be granted a way to get rid of these activities (via let's say, genetical engineering), we should do it -- even though by definition, we'll get rid of the 'pleasure' associated with it, but then again, it would be better (by waste ofc).
Get rid of what - sex, love, or both?
I'm not sure why you'd want to get rid of sex, and you haven't really explained why its contribution to the human condition is predominantly negative. Truthfully, you sound a bit like a religious fundamentalist. Not saying you are - just that's what you sound like, with your "SEX IS EVIL" rhetoric.
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TheDeath
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posted May 01, 2009 08:45 PM |
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Edited by TheDeath at 20:47, 01 May 2009.
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Get rid of what - sex, love, or both?
Since I was talking about urinating at that point, it means getting rid of that. Of course that's only if possible.
Notice that urinating also has a specific pleasure associated with it, and a pain associated with it as well. These are messages from nature to make you do something -- but using the messages as an end to themselves is the WASTE or just 'wrong' (see why, not just 'morally' lol )
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I'm not sure why you'd want to get rid of sex, and you haven't really explained why its contribution to the human condition is predominantly negative.
Pleasure is 'negative' because it's waste without anything constructive, except because you CRAVE for it, which shouldn't happen. Let me put this simply. Pleasure is used to counter-balance that you lust for it (ANY pleasure). There are reasons you lust for it, but that's exactly what's wrong -- you shouldn't (hence the get rid of). I mean, if you don't crave for it you will feel no satisfaction whatsoever from it either. It's like getting free from chains that nature wants you to do.
Of course, pleasure WAS needed in nature, otherwise we wouldn't do the pleasureable activities which nature wants us to do (in other words, it CHARMS us to do them). Like reproduction, or urinating, which are important for survival.
But I think it's pretty obvious we're past that point, since when I say pleasure or sex, I mean pleasure without anything associated with it. That is, sex without procreation, or pleasure without anything else for that matter. THAT is bad, a waste, etc...
The Matrix provides a very GOOD example of this. Inside the machines, 'pleasure' was one of the factors that it also covered, when they were slaves. But it's a reason it was compared to a prison. Or take junkies. Normal people do not CRAVE for drugs, right? I think the metaphor that junkies are enslaved to their doses applies pretty well IMO.
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JollyJoker
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posted May 01, 2009 08:52 PM |
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@JJ: well in my opinion, it is very difficult to explain it, but easier with examples -- I hope you know what I mean. I gave an example of what is love before, with that guy's response of the asexual girl. (take notice: it is such feeling as "I don't care" that makes it so).
Another example of love without *background noise*.
The reason I excluded sex from my examples is because we are analyzing love, and so I tried to 'ignore' the sex part simply because when you analyze an object you need to get rid of the background noise or anything that is irrelevant to it, if you want to discover anything (like in science).
These people may also play games, for example, or other mental challenges. But those also have nothing to do with love, so I excluded such background noise.
Hope you can see what I mean.
Yes, Death, I see what you mean. I just disagree with your intrinsic claim that "love" is a basic feeling - a feeling like a prime number that cannot be divided anymore, if you see what I mean.
In this case you are not eliminating a background noise but a consituent part of certain kinds of love, and the only reason you'd do that is because you don't "trust" sex, since you think nature is drugging us and we need to find "pure", untarnished, unblamished purely "mental" love, without nature supporting it with "drugs".
Emotions as such are questionable anyway: where do they come from? Do they really originate in the mind? Or are they just the way the brain perceives the messages from our racial memories? (Or are they something else completely?)
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Fauch
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posted May 01, 2009 10:22 PM |
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But I think it's pretty obvious we're past that point, since when I say pleasure or sex, I mean pleasure without anything associated with it. That is, sex without procreation, or pleasure without anything else for that matter. THAT is bad, a waste, etc...
oh yes, I think everyone agree that pleasure for pleasure is a waste.
seriously, who likes useless pleasures?
we should not care about our personal satisfaction and should all work for the greatest possible accomplishments for humanity, whether it pleases us or not.
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mvassilev
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posted May 01, 2009 10:35 PM |
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TheDeath:
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That is the same kind of thinking as "The reason I don't trust computers in performing calculations is that something might go wrong."
Completely different levels of risk there.
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Anakrom
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posted May 02, 2009 08:54 AM |
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Pleasure is 'negative' because it's waste without anything constructive
Pleasure triggers release of hormons, which affect your health.
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TheDeath
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posted May 02, 2009 10:25 PM |
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Edited by TheDeath at 22:28, 02 May 2009.
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Yes, Death, I see what you mean. I just disagree with your intrinsic claim that "love" is a basic feeling - a feeling like a prime number that cannot be divided anymore, if you see what I mean.
In this case you are not eliminating a background noise but a consituent part of certain kinds of love, and the only reason you'd do that is because you don't "trust" sex, since you think nature is drugging us and we need to find "pure", untarnished, unblamished purely "mental" love, without nature supporting it with "drugs".
Emotions as such are questionable anyway: where do they come from? Do they really originate in the mind? Or are they just the way the brain perceives the messages from our racial memories? (Or are they something else completely?)
Well there are many factors that people do while in love -- however they are just background noise, most times. Some play video games together. Does that make video games love? They are just background noise when analyzing love, of course. If the subject of interest were video games, then love would be a background noise (as would everything else not related).
I didn't say, however, that it is undividable or anything like that, since myself I said I cannot "explain" love with words but only through examples. The above example, also, has no way to add 'cheating' there (i.e not truly love) since it doesn't exist in an asexual case.
Of course, examples are not explanations, but I already said I cannot explain it. Usually people can correlate/interpolate from examples (like colors -- you know, you can't really explain colors at all, but you can show someone examples so he'll know as well; like show some kid a red apple and say: this is red!)
If he will ask "but it has multiple colors" (suppose the stem is green), and you'll reply with 'ignore the stem (or background noise), that's not what part/color I was analyzing right now'. Something like that, I know this example with apples sound stupid. But I tried with 'layman' terms, otherwise Father can't understand a thing I say lol.
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oh yes, I think everyone agree that pleasure for pleasure is a waste.
seriously, who likes useless pleasures?
we should not care about our personal satisfaction and should all work for the greatest possible accomplishments for humanity, whether it pleases us or not.
Well first of all you mistake pleasure with happiness. The latter is a mental product, whatever may trigger it (depends on individual and his interests and how his mind/brain developed, etc...), while the former is just hardcoded by nature into flesh/physical pleasure.
The movie "Demolition Man" shows an example of this. I don't think that's "bland" at all, except that it is very anti-violence (I mean even in entertainment), so my "Utopia" would be even less bland than that.
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Pleasure triggers release of hormons, which affect your health.
Which must then be 'rebuilt' since they're consumed.
Drugs are a release of substances too. And they act VERY similar to other pleasures like the pleasure associated with sex. Notice that it is hardcoded by nature, but that is obvious it's only useful for species who can't understand that, which excludes us. (since there's no other purpose to it)
And btw I don't want to "get rid of" sex (well you know what that means) -- I want to "get rid of" the pleasure associated with sex. Of course people can still breed if they want. But only once there's no pleasure associated with it can most of us understand what I'm saying, probably. The only problem is that such "an experiment" is not available, unfortunately 
You know in the future we might get some powerful drug (I can search for the article I once saw, but I can't promise I'll find the exact one I posted in the other thread though ) that gives us pleasure better than sex. Then sex would look bland in comparison.
Pleasure is relative. You can't say something is "bland" because that's relative to your current level. Someone not dependent on ANY pleasure at ALL will find MANY things which most don't very 'interesting' or whatever it is the opposite of the word 'bland'. (they expressed concern in that article too, that this would happen).
Take for example, eating. Of course we are all dependent on it, but let's assume that some people eat more (like overweight). They will NOT be satisfied with the food that normal people eat, they need more quantity (after a certain period of addiction). Does that mean they are ok? Of course they waste it. They could do with less, and you don't see normal people saying that their food is 'bland'. Only those more addicted to it will find it bland, by comparison to what they are used to.
@mvass: What are you saying? If the Matrix fails, which is a computer so by that logic it means you don't trust computers, what's the risk except that you'll wake up in reality and say "it sucks"? In any case, it is better than the alternative... Unless...
...you actually become addicted to the intense pleasure or world in there and now despise the real world for being too weak to satisfy your pleasure demands. Which is what happens with most addictions. i.e you find it bland while everyone else (who wasn't in the Matrix) finds it ok and interesting.
It's all on perspective.
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mvassilev
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posted May 02, 2009 11:02 PM |
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What are you saying? If the Matrix fails, which is a computer so by that logic it means you don't trust computers, what's the risk except that you'll wake up in reality and say "it sucks"?
Or it fries your brain. Or there's a fire/hurricane/earthquake, and you die because you can't escape because you're "asleep". Or some guy who's not in the Matrix comes and kills you while you're lying there, enjoying yourself.
Also, eating to live, stuffing oneself, and eating for taste are three entirely different things.
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TheDeath
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posted May 02, 2009 11:06 PM |
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Maybe current computers will **** up coordinates also and launch a missile into your house instead of in space 
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mvassilev
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posted May 02, 2009 11:46 PM |
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Yeah, that's why I'm not a fan of missiles. But the risk levels are completely different. Plus, many of the things that can happen have nothing to do with the computer itself.
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Anakrom
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posted May 02, 2009 11:50 PM |
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Which must then be 'rebuilt' since they're consumed.
Does that lower their usefulness? Nothing concerning body lasts forever, and everything except appendix has its uses. And yes, drugs can trigger releases of specific hormons too, that is why they are used in medicine (in cases you need to affect hypophysis and such). Thatīs why I consider them useful too.
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TheDeath
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posted May 02, 2009 11:51 PM |
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Edited by TheDeath at 23:54, 02 May 2009.
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@mvass: My intention was to mean that it would be paranoia. Sabotage? OMG someone really wanted to ruin your life mvass, all saboteurs are after you 
But then again, sabotage CAN and are much more likely to occur right now in military bases and drop a few missiles or 'corrupt' them for this purpose. Don't you think?
Of course, not at first, but people will trust the Matrix after say, 20 years -- like we do with computers today (some people didn't trust them at first either). or maybe not, since they're also computers and people learnt to trust them by now.
@Anakrom: I do not think that we disagree on THAT point. In this case I said pleasure is wasteful as an end to itself. For example, I have nothing "against" sex for procreation, or drugs for medicine, or whatever. Pleasure as an end to itself is wasteful.
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mvassilev
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posted May 03, 2009 12:03 AM |
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Well, if it can be shown that it is safe, then I'm all for it. I don't think it'll be reliable any time soon - if ever.
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JollyJoker
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posted May 03, 2009 10:42 AM |
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This is already dissolving yet again into meaningless skirmishes about side issues.
I think, this thread was supposed to be about an evaluation what was more important (for humanity in gerenal and in specials areas of interest specifically), sex or love.
My problem with this is that sex is defined quite precisely, while love is not. Love, as opposed to that is not.
Now, it makes no sense to compare two things, when everyone may understand something else when speaking about one of it. So I think we should define love for the purpose of this thread (only).
The definition would depend on OP's intentions.
It looks like the love of a mother for their children is based on instinct (like sex), specifically on the fact that they are growing in their womb, and it makes sense to asume that this creates a special link. Considering the helplessness of a newborn, it makes sense from a biological way to have such an instinct.
However, this is a special case, obviously, and there are other affections.
OP's intention seems to be (and correct me if I'm wrong) to compare a specific kind of love - the love people feel for each other, when they have sex, keep together and have children. That, however, is a SOCIAL construct more or less. It depends on how society is organized and how children's care is organized, whose name a child becomes (mom's or dad's and so on), since there ARE and have been human soecieties that are NOT organized this way.
"Love" would seem to be no "basic" feeling, a feeling, that's either there or not, on or off, but seems to be a multitude of mostly positive feelings towards other persons. For the love between the two constituent parts of the small family sexual attraction does seem to play a role here, and an important one as well.
In this case "love" between two grown-ups would be a combination of things like sexual attraction, intellectual understanding, respect, wonderment, adoration, a feeling of security and so on.
HOWEVER, another possible explanation would be that "love" is a more basic feeling, namely the echo of the basic instinct of motherly love that comes with experiencing it as a child, which is a quite different concept.
In this case the "love" between two grown-ups would be the combination of said echo with sexual attraction.
In the first case we'd have to compare sex on one hand with every other positive emotion on the other.
In the second case we'd compare sex with motherly love and its echo.
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Personally, I think, that Western civilization is based on science and capitalism, and in my opinion the development of those is based on the general suppression of sex by the Christian religion and all of their offshoots and branches. I could make a lot of points for this to support it, but for this here I'll just say that the suppression of sex basically "forced" people to look elsewhere for something to make them happy, and both "becoming rich" and trying to discover the nature of things (if you could afford it; a lot of early scientists were rich people who needed a hobby) were ways to do so. Art is another, but art works quite well (and best, it would seem) without suppressing sex.
That would lead to the conclusion (for me) that SEX had been most important, whether in an active or passive role (suppressed) in leading to the present.
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Corribus
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posted May 03, 2009 07:28 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 19:31, 03 May 2009.
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I think, this thread was supposed to be about an evaluation what was more important (for humanity in gerenal and in specials areas of interest specifically), sex or love.
Yes, thank you JJ.
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My problem with this is that sex is defined quite precisely, while love is not. Love, as opposed to that is not.
That's a problem. It's hard to define love. One question I have is whether it's possible to define love without sex.
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OP's intention seems to be (and correct me if I'm wrong) to compare a specific kind of love - the love people feel for each other, when they have sex, keep together and have children. That, however, is a SOCIAL construct more or less. It depends on how society is organized and how children's care is organized, whose name a child becomes (mom's or dad's and so on), since there ARE and have been human soecieties that are NOT organized this way.
This is more or less what I'm referring to - although I'm not sure I agree that the love between - say - two bothers is fundamentally different than the love between a mother and son. They both ultimately serve the same purpose: keep the family together and increase chances of survival.
For that matter, what about friendship? I doubt most of us would say that we love our friends - at least, not in the same way we love our parents or children. But what's the purpose of friendship? Doesn't is serve the same purpose as love, although in a broader and looser context. [An equally interesting question is: why do we make enemies.]
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That would lead to the conclusion (for me) that SEX had been most important, whether in an active or passive role (suppressed) in leading to the present.
So, could Death's sex-free utopia survive if it was based on a Western Model?
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TheDeath
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posted May 03, 2009 08:04 PM |
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Personally, I think, that Western civilization is based on science and capitalism, and in my opinion the development of those is based on the general suppression of sex by the Christian religion and all of their offshoots and branches. I could make a lot of points for this to support it, but for this here I'll just say that the suppression of sex basically "forced" people to look elsewhere for something to make them happy, and both "becoming rich" and trying to discover the nature of things (if you could afford it; a lot of early scientists were rich people who needed a hobby) were ways to do so. Art is another, but art works quite well (and best, it would seem) without suppressing sex.
Well, if they are looking for something else instead more constructive, why would that be a bad thing? Of course, being rich is by itself kinda abstract. Because money serves no purpose if you don't use it, so we have to look at what they use it for. To be on topic, I would say, we could even turn to more love instead of sex. (i.e the "other activity" would here be 'more love').
And it seems to have taken a twisted turn cause now, you can "buy" sex (and by the way, I am not specifically talking about sex only, I am against pleasure, sex isn't the only one, but the pleasure associated with it, is just one example).
And I disagree about the art thing. Depends what you mean by art of course. For me it's mostly about creativity. Sex doesn't help that. In fact it makes it worse
Even "modern" art (for example instead of statues we have computer models) seems to take on a new edge opposite of sex or at least the art in the 19th during the Victorian era which was frankly bland in comparison (for example, "pictures" or "artistical representation" of Universe or Black Holes, or more elaborate monsters than just humanoids...)
If you think about it, that's what the Matrix was used for: to make people preoccupied with pointless trivia and pleasures so they wouldn't revolt against the machines. (in my opinion, it is one of the worst things that can happen to a so-called enlightened species). I think the philosophy and moral behind that movie is impressive, considering most take it as just another action flick.
(also Cypher's betrayal shows this point)
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JollyJoker
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posted May 03, 2009 08:38 PM |
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You make a fatal mistake, Death, the same mistake the church made. A human is a human, not a mind with crap around. We may suffer pain from the body, and we may suffer pain from the mind. And we may enjoy pleasure from the body and we may enjoy pleasure from the mind.
There is a time for everything.
Oh, and matric is just a STORY, in case you didn't notice.
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Corribus
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posted May 04, 2009 03:15 PM |
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@TheDeath
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I am against pleasure,
What a bizarre thing to oppose. :confused: Maybe that should go into mvass's legendary quotes thread.
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And I disagree about the art thing. Depends what you mean by art of course. For me it's mostly about creativity. Sex doesn't help that. In fact it makes it worse
I disagree. Art isn't most about creativity - it's about expression. Sex (and more specifically, sexual repression) has been a major social driving force for society, and art has been a medium of the expression of sexual themes since humans started walking on two legs.
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