It seems conceivable that one might argue that future people have no standing at all. This would be unintuitive, but does not strike me as prima facie incompatible with common consequentialist or deontological systems. So, I'd like to use the claim that "future people have no standing at all" as a baseline for discussion and ask for your opinions and reasons as to why this statement is correct of false, given the system of moral philosophy you ascribe to. — Echarmion

This is going to ramble a bit, while I get some ideas down...

If we consider that our behaviour is geared towards survival, then what constitutes our success? If it is our capacity to continue an individual life, then we are doomed to inevitable failure. If it is to extend the survival of our particular genetic code, then we compromise this aim with each ‘successful’ reproduction.

But why should we concern ourselves with ‘future people’ if we are the ones meant to survive? Because we’re not meant to survive, and both the efforts we make in this finite life and the pain, humiliation and loss we endure are not just in pursuit of our own temporary pleasures.

That we are aware of ‘future people’ at all appears to be unique to our species. Our capacity to map causal chains beyond our own physical existence enables us to predict potential effects of certain actions, and even initiate alternative actions in order to knowingly cause a preferred effect much further along the chain - and in time - than we may live long enough to observe.

An awareness of ‘future people’ and the idea that the hardships we endure and the choices we make now are for the benefit of our descendants has been a feature of morality teachings for thousands of years, as have the difficulties we’ve faced in buying into it. The Pentateuch, spanning many generations, attempted to make sense of the causal chains that took the Hebrew people away from a fertile land, into slavery and then the desert, before they returned in force to claim the land as their own. These writings made effective use of ‘divine’ prophecy, promises and punishment to help them join the dots where today we would seek (and have the technology to find) more accurate information. They then used those apparent patterns to try and predict future outcomes of current events, and sought to inform or control ‘future people’ with their theories, hopes, warnings, laws, etc.

The information we have about the universe, as a consequence of our past interactions with it, allows us to predict what will be the result for us of future interactions with the universe.

Mapping causal chains this way is as much a scientific endeavour as it is ethical. Mapping multi-generational casual chains feels ‘right’ - even though it conflicts with a ‘natural’ tendency to think, speak and act primarily in one’s own personal interests. That we are capable of reliably predicting effects hundreds of years into the future from our actions today makes us collectively responsible for those effects - because we can choose to be aware of that information or to ignore it, but we cannot choose that the information doesn’t exist. We cannot absolve ourselves of the harm that occurs beyond our lifetime by simply choosing not to make ourselves aware of the causal conditions we create with every action - or by declaring the information inconclusive.

IMO potential people have as much relevance as any other potential event that may not be as predictable as we’d like. We prefer to control for such uncertainty - to effectively ignore or factor out those variables we cannot control or predict. That’s all well and good, but we cannot pretend we are creating a future where people do not exist. We’re going to have to factor this potential in somehow, and be okay with the uncertainty.

My point wasn’t that an object at absolute rest can exist, but that the concept exists only as a possibility. We can describe it, talk about it, perhaps even cause an object to approach absolute rest - as much as one can approach infinity. But whatever information we acquire is irrelevant.

I agree with you that ‘all objects are in relative motion’. More than that:

The world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events. The difference between things and events is that things persist in time; events have a limited duration. — Carlo Rovelli, ‘The Order of Time’

I continually find it fascinating that we refer to ‘natural’ or ‘instinctual’ preferences for our species, one of whose most distinctive characteristics is our individual capacity to completely restructure preferences...

If survival is not your main goal in life, what is? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Increasing awareness, connection and collaboration

Do you think knowing yourself as fully as possible is pointless to our survival? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I think knowing yourself as fully as possible is essential. But I think survival as the main purpose of knowing yourself is misguided, and I think pursuing our survival as the ultimate goal is pointless.

Great quote! :up:

So your perspective is that our greater complexity is just a pointless extension of our basic animal nature - and there is no real point in self-reflection at all, let alone revising our behaviour patterns or seeking information, except perhaps to increase chances of ‘survival’ in a losing game...?

A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary for those who want to think for themselves rather than be led by the nose via Faith. But when it becomes the core principle of your life, Skepticism tends to deteriorate into unhealthy sneering Cynicism (in the modern sense of contemptuous, pessimistic, and generally distrustful of people's motives). — Gnomon

I wonder what you’re arguing against here - I’m not advocating Nihilism or Existentialism as core principles at all, but as a useful path for @dazed to break this attachment to certainty or infallible authority. My current worldview has developed out of Catholicism with the help of both Nihilism and Existentialism, but I see both as a journey through, rather than into, the hopelessness and despair that comes from having no visible path ahead of you, and towards a sense of freedom in charting your own course.

When you walk into pitch blackness and close the door behind you, it helps to know that it’s more of an open field than a dead end. That way you don’t feel like you have to go back the way you came to escape the dark. Let your eyes adjust and take a good look around - it’s not as dark out here as it first seems, and the only danger is if you stop making your own way through...

By being humble you retract a foothold from those around you who would hope to grow through conflicting ideas.(well conflict in general but in our time in my location conflict happens far less outside the conceptual realms, thankfully.) By not showing what you've got, being a little abrasive and standing out all you do is stay "safe". Not even safe really, what is safety? You're just staying the same, which you for some reason believe to be safer than to be somewhere else, which is often just a silly belief, as well as worse than where you'd be if you weren't such a cowardly humble mess. Just show off and try to prove your point or get proven wrong like jeez, stop caring so much what others think of you and stand by your truth, and if you are proven wrong then cut that truth out of you. There are certainly levels of "class" when it comes to showing off and one could certainly express their opinion or idea while being as humble as possible, that is ideal. But sometimes people just need a punch in the throat, "Your idea is wrong and you are an idiot for having it, though with that being said you can improve and cut out that faulty bit of data and better yourself by adopting this new belief." Pain is not always to be avoided, sometimes it's best to just hurt people mentally, grow the fuck up stop thinking what you believe must have intrinsic value. If a piece of you is broken or decayed you cut it out and move on, stop holding onto some disgusting long dead corpse of an idea so you can fit in with some cult-ture. You can ask the "wrong questions", you can be absolutely worthless in some areas and certainly are. You MUST learn to recognize cognitive ability and wisdom and when someone who has that or is more educated in a particular field than you, then you must concede. — DrProphet

There’s being humble, and then there’s being reticent - I don’t think they’re the same thing. You don’t have to be abrasive or show off in order to share your thoughts about the world or stand by your truth, and you don’t have to call someone else an idiot just because you find fault with their thinking. Pain is not always to be avoided, I agree - but that doesn’t give you permission to inflict pain on others.

You seem to have strong opinions about how everyone else should interact with you, and how you should have the freedom to treat others. Perhaps you should look instead at how you should be interacting with others, and how others should have the freedom to treat you. Then perhaps you won’t be so annoyed at not being able to control your little universe. Just a suggestion. Fact of life: you can’t control other people.

When we embrace nihilism, I think we learn to face the reality that everyone is still trying to figure all of this out, and then learn to draw from each other’s experiences not only the courage to explore, but also the missing information that will help us to more accurately map those aspects of reality that are less objectively certain - in particular what is valuable and what it all means.
— Possibility
Your description sounds more like positive Stoicism than negative Nihilism. Rather than rejecting reality, Stoicism embraces the world, warts and all. The focus is on developing personal virtue instead of retreating into "bah-humbug" cynicism. :smile: — Gnomon

When I continued with ‘...and then...’, I was referring to emerging out the other side...Nihilism for me was useful in breaking down constructs and false assumptions, but not where I wanted to stay.

It's helpful to note, then, that [Nietzsche] believed we could--at a terrible price--eventually work through nihilism. If we survived the process of destroying all interpretations of the world, we could then perhaps discover the correct course for humankind. — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Nihilism can be rejecting reality, sure - but it can also be rejecting and being sceptical of any particular interpretation of reality as truth. Stoicism doesn’t necessarily allow for the same level of skepticism, but some of their approach may be seen as a helpful path out of nihilism, I suppose.

I often get the sense that I am aware of distinctions within my mind (such as between feelings and the emotional reactions they initiate) that others are either unable or unwilling to discern. There are times when the discussion leads me to assume the former.

You use the term ‘reaction’ as if it’s an involuntary response, but I dispute this. When we feel anger, the limbic system responds: the heart rate goes up, adrenalin flows and the muscles prepare for fight or flight. That’s an involuntary response to feeling. We can’t change that.

But an emotional reaction takes into account our sensory inputs, memories, logic and knowledge. We locate the source of the stimulus and direct our energies towards what we determine to be the most effective or valuable reaction in relation to the organism. Most of the time this is achieved without conscious thought - this, I suspect, is the ‘internal reality’ you seem to think I don’t accept. I accept it as a reality, but not as a necessity. Because when we apply conscious attention to this internal process (self-reflection), we realise that a reaction appearing most valuable to the organism is not always the most effective one (or the most valuable to civilisation), and also has effects that can be damaging at a later time. With that, we can adjust the value structures that determine our best course of action, so that when a similar feeling occurs in the future, we are aware that we can react differently. This may take some conscious effort initially, but eventually we can develop it into a better reaction without conscious thought.

That a rape victim would hate the man raping her just seems like a given. It is. It is a response to hate and violation. To me judging it as something that should not be there is like judging someone's immune system for imflamatory response around a wound or for violently struggling to get to the surface of water when running out of air. — Coben

I will point out first of all that ‘rape’ refers to a past (perhaps current) situation - not one that can be anticipated or reliably predicted. Because the split second before it becomes ‘rape’, it is considered by society to be a perfectly acceptable interaction. That a woman who finds herself in a rape situation would feel intense fear, anger and frustration is a given. It is most likely also a given, and perfectly understandable, that she would actively attack the reality of what is happening.

But let me ask you, hypothetically: if there was a more effective way to put a stop to unwanted sexual advances that didn’t require a woman to physically or verbally attack (which may not be effective and would probably result in her sustaining more harm), would that be a better course of action? If she could show reluctance, resistance or say ‘no’, ‘stop’ or even ‘wait’ or hang on’ - and have her words or actions mean something - would that be better? Why do we have to wait until a woman reacts with strong emotion, violence or hate before we recognise that something needs to be changed about the situation?

A woman would have expressed her fear, frustration or anger long before the situation could be termed ‘rape’. Let me explain what I firmly believe angers, frustrates and frightens women most about rape - what continues to be glossed over and what needs to be changed: it is how much any man can interpret, distort and ignore what a woman says or does when his focus is SEX - and genuinely believe his perspective is true.

Hate is complicated, so what we mean by hate can mean something like a bitter grudge-like hate which we feed over time, remind ourselves of what they did, etc. And then there is a hate that arises in reaction to mistreatment say or hate itself. I definitely want to interfere with patterns where I am getting stuck in hate (and fear, and heck, even love ((more on that later))). But I want to actually even be more free to react to mistreatment with the full range of angry feelings, including hate. I don't want to act out on this - unless I am physically attacked - but to accept these feelings as natural and not problematic. And I can actually feel rather tremendously strong reactions of hate without coming near to acting out physically or even practically- like firing someone or sending an angry letter. There are so many judgments out there about how strong feelings always lead to actions, but this is because people tend to suppress their fears, so if they feel a lot of rage, they have no balance and can act out, especially with alcohol, for example, since this suppresses fear (and cognitive processes also). So for me it depends what we mean by hate. I don't want to have as some rule that I need to suppress my emotional reactions to hateful treatment. I may not show the other person, for a variety of reasons, but I want no more judgment in me that I should be more understanding or anger is ok, but not hate. When someone dehumanizes us, I see nothing wrong with the emotion of hate. Hatred might become for some people part of patterns that are destructive, but that's for reasons having little to do with the emotion itself. — Coben

The way I see it, the ‘full range of angry feelings’ can be felt and even expressed without hate. In fact I would argue that they should be expressed without hate. And I agree with you that people tend to suppress their fears, which can lead to hate. Hate, as I see it, is denying the reality of our experience. That we feel anger, frustration or fear is natural and not problematic. These feelings draw our attention to experiences in the world that we wish to change. I see nothing wrong with sharing our feelings about these experiences. But feeling is not the same as emotion. How often do we admit our feelings of fear, anger or frustration without reacting to them emotionally?

We can respond to a wish for change in one of two ways: either we deny the reality of the experience and want to attack any evidence of it (hate), or we accept the reality and open ourselves to awareness, connection and collaboration in order to effect real change to that reality in time (love). When we have an emotional reaction of hate, whether we suppress that reaction or not, we already deny the reality of the experience. When we ‘refuse to accept’ hateful treatment, we deny the reality of the experience.

This is the confusing part: We can’t change something that we refuse to accept. In order to change the hateful treatment we first need to accept the reality that it occurs, and that we have a strong desire to change it. We need to be prepared to acknowledge that we are hurt by this hateful treatment. We need to share our feelings of frustration, anger and fear (with those who support us, but also with those who hurt us) - and to do so without hate, without reacting emotionally. Only then can we gain the necessary awareness, connection and collaboration to effect real change.

You may interpret what I’ve just described as showing weakness or permitting dehumanisation, but I disagree. When we can share how we feel about hateful treatment without reacting emotionally, I see that as show of strength and courage. I think that Rosa Parks and MLK showed us this, and also showed us how effective it can be.

I’m in no position to judge anyone who chooses to hate. I’m only disagreeing with anyone who attempts to justify it, celebrate it or argue that it’s necessary.

Lots of people fleeing the church feel like they need a bath (something that doesn't involve getting washed in the blood of the lamb). Take a bath, but don't go down the drain with the bath water. — Bitter Crank

I agree with you. The point of nihilism, in my view, is to emerge on the other side of it without baggage - not to stay there.

No authority and no certainty doesn’t add up to no meaning in my book - it’s just a discarding of what we thought we knew, a shedding of skin. And it’s not something anyone should be standing up to declare - that goes against the idea of ‘no authority’, doesn’t it?

I can relate to much of your experience - I was also raised catholic and journeyed through nihilism to begin to formulate a philosophy that better reflected how I saw reality - interestingly similar in many ways to the perspectives of both @Gnomon and @Pfhorrest.

I’ve never quite declared myself to be ‘atheist’ - but I’m not a theist anymore, either. Like @Wayfarer, I still see value in the mythology of religion, as long as it’s recognised as such, and like @Bitter Crank I relate to the idea that we share a basic sense of what we should and shouldn’t be doing with most religions, regardless of whether or not we believe in things like the resurrection or any supernatural being.

I think in many ways it’s a matter of not being afraid of the ‘not knowing’. The comfort I took from Catholicism was more about a dependence on claims of certainty and authority that I’ve since recognised to be false. Part of nihilism is recognising that there IS no certainty or authority - we are all in the same boat here, although some will go to great lengths to conceal it from themselves and others. They’re allowing fear to guide them, instead of increasing awareness, connection and collaboration. When we embrace nihilism, I think we learn to face the reality that everyone is still trying to figure all of this out, and then learn to draw from each other’s experiences not only the courage to explore, but also the missing information that will help us to more accurately map those aspects of reality that are less objectively certain - in particular what is valuable and what it all means. It’s not something you can figure out by avoiding the dark, but nor is it helpful to shrug the shoulders and remain in the dark, as @180 Proof warns.

I think you can at least take comfort in the knowledge that some of us have been roughly where you are now, and eventually reached a level of confidence in navigating a world without certainty or authority beyond what nihilism appears to offer at first glance. It’s not so scary once you get used to it. I would recommend Pfhorrest’s approach to ethics - as complicated as it sounds, I find it make sense within my own perspective of increasing awareness, connection and collaboration...

↪uncanni He called them analogous, which isn't interchangeable.

adjective: analogous

comparable in certain respects, typically in a way which makes clearer the nature of the things compared.
But given how he has been saying hate is not bad or wrong per se and that he feels it seems a fair conclusion, it is odd for him to be saying it is analogous to evil. — Coben

This is the reason I have been using the terms ‘justifiable’ and ‘necessary’ to clarify the argument. GCB accepts that hate can be seen as ‘evil’ but argues that this doesn’t necessarily make it wrong. His argument seems to be that - given the way we understand evolution as ‘survival of the fittest’ - there are necessary ‘evils’ we must perform in order to survive and ensure the survival of our preferred way of life, those we love, etc. Kill or be killed, an eye for an eye, hating hate, etc - these are ways we attempt to justify actions in society that would otherwise be condemned as ‘evil’.

The argument may sound reasonable on the surface - as long as we don’t look too closely at why we hate and why we love. As long as we maintain that ‘love’ and ‘hate’ refer to mutually dependent value scales - that the degree to which we love someone corresponds necessarily to the degree to which we hate its opposite - then the argument can be said to hold.

My argument is not only that these value scales are independent, but that they refer only to the feelings that influence but don’t necessarily initiate love or hate. As humans, we are not slaves to our feelings - we initiate thoughts, words and actions according to the atemporal, value structured interaction of sensory information with the memories, feelings, logic and knowledge of our experiences. Mostly this happens without our conscious attention to the process, and it’s only after we act that we consciously select the value structures that appear to satisfactorily explain our past action in the simplest way.

But that doesn’t mean we’re unable to pay conscious attention to and evaluate the way our value structures interact. This is what self-consciousness and self-evaluation is for. This is what imagination and thought is for. We can evaluate our feelings in relation to imagined experiences, and be honest with ourselves about the degree to which they might influence our actions. We can map our own value structures, be critical of them and even change them.

But too often we don’t, because to acknowledge our capacity in this respect is to acknowledge responsibility. If we admit that we don’t have to hate, then we are responsible for when we do hate. It’s much easier for us to deny our capacity to choose love in the face of oppression, than to try and understand why we choose to hate instead.

As to how I would explain it to my wife. I would say I chose the one whose life I had a better chance of saving. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

...even though your decision to act was also influenced by your feelings of preference towards one child over another...ok

That was quick and instinctive but I don't know if we would all react the same way. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I find it interesting what we label as ‘instinctive’ - suggesting that a split second decision can only be based on an organism’s inherent behaviour patterns, and yet we cannot say that we would all react the same way. Why not? Is this woman inherently different, or is there something we can adjust so that we would behave in this way that we admire?

I get that there is no time for conscious thought in the moment, but I think it’s the kinds of discussions and thinking we’re doing now that enable us to evaluate our ‘instinctive’ behaviour patterns and make adjustments according to a broader perspective of the world: to recognise that we’re not ‘locked in’ to certain behaviour patterns; that we can not only map the mental conditions that initiate certain actions, but also structure or even create the right conditions in our own minds.

Not qutie sure what that means, but it's likely my fault for joining an ongoing discussion. I would add that often in parenting it is not just at a particular time, but even for a whole lifetime of the relationship. This does not meanthe parent does not love his or her other children. But some simply love one more than the others, long term. This isn't evil, it's often just down to who can connect and understand each other given some tempermental resonance. — Coben

But I disagree that it means we love one child more than another. That we connect more with one child does not mean that we have less love for the others. I think love exists as a potential - we may perceive less opportunities to demonstrate love in comfortable or mutually enjoyable ways with one child than with another, but I think we limit ourselves if we figure that as less love. My two children are remarkably different - one I understand much more readily, and we gravitate towards one another through similar interests. With the other I need to consciously look for opportunities to demonstrate the love I know is there - both for his benefit and as a reminder to myself.

The way I see it, our feelings of love (value, preference, desire) certainly influence but do not determine our capacity to act with love. They also influence but again do not determine our capacity to hate. The same with feelings of fear, anger and frustration. Our feelings can contribute, sure - but we aren’t ruled by them in any situation.

I agree with you on pretty much all of what you’ve said here. Apart from this:

because it would remind all three that we often do love one child more than the other (s) and in this case it probably led to that child not surviving. — Coben

I don’t deny that, at any point in time or set of circumstances, we would prefer one child over another. What I’m arguing is that while this appears to be an indication of where love is at work at any point in time, it is by no means an indication of a lesser quantity of love being available.

And it seems to me mentioning logic as you did....
There are too many instances of actions that defy logic,
— Possibility
It's not logic that makes one choose one's own child first. It's outside of logic, it is feeling. And even the other parents, if they knew you had to choose one child, would understand you chose your own, because they know what they would have done. They might not want to be friends, because the feelings go so deep, but they would understand the choice. — Coben

The reason I mentioned logic here is because in the aftermath of intense situations, many people tend to apply either a purely logical or purely emotional appraisal of the situation to evaluate or justify the actions of those involved. In my opinion it isn’t that cut and dried, and what initiates action - even in these situations - is a complex, subjective and amorphous ‘structure’ of mind that determines how logic, feeling, memory, knowledge and sensory information interact in relation to value and meaning. You suggested so yourself when you described the physical obstacles and ‘chances’ of success. So it’s inaccurate to assume that the parent made a choice based only on their feelings, even though it may seem that simple to everyone, including the parent themselves. When we start to look at how someone with autism might act in this situation, for instance, the complexity becomes irreducible.

Real life events are ‘a mess’ only because we’d prefer them to be simple enough to get our head around. They’re not. There’s always more going on than we’re aware of, and our mind has the capacity to process much more information than we can consciously pay attention to at any point in time.

But getting back to the original topic, perhaps you and I can at least agree that there is no hate necessary in these examples - that saving one child instead of another does not require one to hate the child we don’t save.

So you can see yourself saving your neighbor's child instead of your own.

Wow.

Don't tell your wife why or she, if smart, will drop you like a hot potato. Your a pathetic human — Gnostic Christian Bishop

There are many reasons why I believe that I would choose to save my own child before my neighbour’s child - and my husband’s feelings as well as my own would factor strongly, for sure - but I’m not going to rule out the possibility of circumstances at the time that might lead me to go the other way, even if I can’t describe them in detail right now. I know that I would have to live with my decision as well as everyone else’s opinion of it, but I’m still not going to rule it out. If you think that makes me ‘pathetic’, I’m okay with that. I’m at least being honest with myself.

What we base our decisions on in situations like these are complex and cannot be predicted with any certainty. There are too many instances of actions that defy logic, social expectations and other ‘normal’ value structures for me to be certain of my own response, and I won’t try to assure myself of possessing any ‘inherent values’ to which I may struggle to reconcile my behaviour after the event.

But in a similar hypothetical fire situation if both the children were YOURS, would your decision to choose one child over the other be ‘proof’ that you LOVE one of your two children less? And if so, how do you explain that to your wife?

I understand that we look at these actions as ‘proof’ of love, but to me they simply demonstrate our feelings of preference, desire or value attributed to events or objects in time. They prove where love is at work in that moment, but not where love ISN’T.

It’s a bit like potential energy. We can calculate and predict where and even how much will be at work in certain situations, but that’s not ‘proof’ that only a certain quantity of potential energy is ever available for that object or event. And there is no term defining a lack of potential energy...

If I can offer an alternative viewpoint:

Mercy positions the injustice and all of its baggage in the past. To have mercy is to see the potential in someone regardless of past behaviour, and to act according that potential instead of defining a person according to the injustice they have done (ie. ‘the abuser/oppressor’).

Mercy is acknowledging that pain, loss or humiliation has brought all of us to this point (compassion), and then resolving not to add to it in the future by evoking any perceived ‘right’ to retribution (forgiveness).

if you do not love those close to you mare than others, you do not know how to love. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

And I think it is you who doesn’t know how to love. To love is not simply to feel - we don’t love when we desire or prefer or value, although we may claim to feel love. A love bias towards something or someone isn’t to love. These feelings call us to love. But what we love, whether a person or an idea/concept, is an experience regardless of its actuality.

If you had to save either your child or an acquaintance from fire, (lets say), who would you choose? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

This is not a question of love. It’s the same as asking me which of my two children I would choose in the same situation, and then trying to tell me that choice has anything to do with love.

Do you think raising a child through harsh practises or through kindly practices would make them more successful? — Fruitless

Well, that depends what you mean by ‘successful’.

I think when we parent with fear, we pass our fears onto our children. But one of the hardest things to recognise as a parent is that it isn’t about ‘control’. We teach our children to be courageous through awareness, connnection and collaboration - and then we need to gradually let go of our desire to ‘protect’ them from the world.

I think parents can be unnecessarily harsh with their children when they’re afraid - whether they’re afraid for themselves or for their children. Kindness in parenting isn’t giving your children what they want - it’s understanding what they need in order to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with the world, and then having the courage to give it to them when they can demonstrate that they’re ready for it, even if it’s not what you want or when you want it to happen.

As parents, there’s pressure to give our kids the ‘right’ start, with no consensus these days as to what that means. Parenting is more open-ended now than I think it’s ever been. So many parents of the last few generations have been raising children to serve their own individual ends or adhere to some passing trend, and then wonder why we have so many young adults who either feel entitled to life or who resent their own existence.

Personally, I think a dynamic ‘balance’ is achieved by starting at the ‘harsh’ end (eg. restricting movement and freedom) and then gradually allowing opportunities to demonstrate how they handle greater freedom. But I can achieve this with kindness - it’s about being honest with myself (and my kids) about why I’m being ‘harsh’. Do they still have something to learn, or am I just afraid for them - or for what I might be losing?

And let me emphasise the distinction between your statement and mine for clarity:

I don’t need to love others less in order to love my family and friends as much as I do.

I don’t need to love those close to me more. That’s the point.

Thousands of years have seen numerous punishments for the crimes of people (or things). Many techniques have been put into practise - prison, torture and public humuliation.

However which is really the best form of punishment? Is punishment a good idea altogether?

What is your definition of punishment?
Why is punishment considered an effective method in controlling someone's actions? — Fruitless

‘Punishment’ refers to legally sanctioned, mild or ‘unfairly harsh’ retributive action against another.

Retribution is a ‘natural’ fight response to adversity. Punishment is this same basic response in a social setting - a harmful act can also be seen as harmful to the community. Thousands of years of civilisation and law-making have managed to put some emotional distance or rationality into the process, and try to ensure not only that the punishment ‘fits’ the crime, but also that it prevents a re-occurrence and acts as a deterrent. It hasn’t changed the basic idea of permitting retribution for a harmful act.

About 2000 or so years ago, a crazy idea arose that perhaps instead of adding to people’s fears by trying to scare them away from doing harmful actions, we should be giving them an ideal example of living to strive towards and teaching them about courage, kindness and understanding.

It was a great idea, and many different types of communities thrived with this new method. But as they got bigger and didn’t get a chance to understand each other, or they were attacked by larger groups, they started getting hurt or offended and got scared again. So they spent their time trying to scare people away from doing harmful actions, and forgot to teach their communities properly about courage, kindness and understanding...

So what makes us think we can control someone else’s actions, when we’re not even sure how to fully control our own?

In my view, it’s not about control. The ‘control’ we have over our own bodies and over our environment is pretty much the same process: it’s more a matter of understanding how the systems operate, and where there is potential to vary the causal conditions that will initiate a certain action. Be aware, connect and collaborate. Do it with courage, kindness and understanding, and theoretically you won’t need to try and control someone’s actions.

Of course, it’s just a theory...

Is science all good? Or is there somethings wrong with it? Is there somethings wrong with knowing things? Of course, in some situations, people knowing things can be very bad. Suppose a criminal finds out about the science of bombs and weapons, imagine how bad that would be? Imagine, a criminal knowing how to get to where you are. Imagine a criminal knowing how to hack into your bank account. Imagine, them knowing how to steal in other ways.

Imagine people knowing things about you that would make them hate you. You wouldn't like that, would you. True, that knowing what things are bad for you is good, but it can also be very stressful, embarrassing, annoying, and dangerous. — elucid

David Eggers’ novel The Circle explores this question - it may be worth a read (the movie is terrible, by the way, and completely misses the point).

The more we know about the world, the greater our capacity to achieve. It is what we don’t know about the world, and what we don’t want to know, that is far more dangerous and destructive.

Imagine spending lots of time and money wrong scientific researches. That would not be good.

So have some respect for ignorance as well. — elucid

But how would we find out that the scientific research is ‘wrong’?

It isn’t that we should be cautious with seeking knowledge, but that we should be cautious with acting in ignorance.

It's a world of a difference when it reflects its users academic ability and learnedness. — god must be atheist

...as opposed to the apostrophe in ‘user’s’? :wink:

How much of what we achieve is solely our own accomplishment? I don’t believe we accomplish much (if anything) in isolation these days, such that one can take full credit for it as a person. I think that in everything we do, we have someone else to thank for their contribution to the accomplishment.

I think that pride has a tendency to overlook this. When we are proud ‘in our personhood’, we claim all the credit for an accomplishment, often without regard for those who have contributed to the achievement: those who designed or produced the tools we wield with the skills that we’ve been given the opportunity to learn from willing teachers, for instance.

I notice that @Bitter Crank made some distinctions between masculine and feminine roles and how pride is manifest. I don’t normally subscribe to gender stereotypes, but there’s something in this, I think.

I wonder sometimes if there is undue pressure on men in particular to be defined or identified only by achievements they can be proud of - specifically what they do without help.

I think that many women build a sense of pride in association, and often define their ‘personhood’ by certain relationships they can be proud of. The interesting thing is that women also feel pride in their own skills and achievements, just as men do.

Would you say that men also feel a sense of pride in their relationships? Or would they consider this a weakness of sorts? I notice that @Terrapin Station has mentioned pride in relation to sporting teams.

So if we return to the questions I asked before, when pride in a certain skill or achievement is dented (as in ’s example), I think women perhaps recover more easily than men because of the pride they also draw from their relationships.

Which takes me back to the first comments I made here about the contribution of others in our accomplishments. If we accept that anything we achieve is not so much a purely personal effort as a combination of awareness, connection and collaboration with the world around us, than I would argue that being able to draw pride from our relationships is a key element of that. It allows us to feel proud of collaborative achievements - accomplishments that others have contributed to.

Back? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Yes, back to when it was written down and people lived by it without considering the damage it causes.

You break the law of the excluded middle. Put that in the dust bin. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

The law of excluded middle refers to truth value. How does it apply here?

When did we stop trying to make the punishment suit the crime? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

The legal system is not my concern here - I’m talking about person to person relations.

about other people’s lives that may not necessarily be confirmed as true
— Possibility
Anything that is not of truth but carries the weight of truth, is harmful. — Serving Zion

Agreed. But I never said gossip wasn’t harmful, just not necessarily harmful.

Quantum entanglement suggests that each particle has the entire 3-D or 4-D map of the universe, the information ever updated, the universe being as a single entity. While this may not be consciousness at the level we have, it may help the universe accomplish something of the movements of particles and fields in their energy, mass, and momentum, in some global way that ever goes forward overall.

This may not seem to be saying a whole lot, in depth, but since the quantum realm is beneath everything then one would surmise that thee quantum realm must have all to do with everything that goes on. — PoeticUniverse

Personally, I’m not convinced the entire universe is entangled in a single system at the quantum level - and certainly not that each particle has as much information about the universe as you’re suggesting here.

I do think plenty of the universe is entangled, though - in a complex variety of quantum systems formed through particle interactions so far. A meteor that lands on earth contains so much information about its trajectory through space and time - some of which we can already piece together based on the information we have about the systems with which it may have interacted along the way. The potential for us to access much more information about the universe through quantum entanglement is an exciting prospect.

With everything we learn about the universe, we entangle ourselves ever more...

If a complex system such as the Universe were to be intentionally planned, then the mind that planned it would need to be at least as complex. — Janus

I didn’t say the Universe was intentionally planned, though.

What is "pride"?

I've been wondering about this concept central to masculinity. In my mind, there's nothing more central and grounding for a man to feel prideful.

What are your thoughts about pride? — Wallows

Pride is pleasure at, or a high opinion of, one’s accomplishments or value.

This is fine and commendable only so long as we aren’t positioning this value in relation to those around us. But we do, don’t we?

Can I still feel proud of my skill with certain tools when I observe someone demonstrating more skill with the same tools? If my sense of pride hinges on being the ‘best’ at something, then discovering that I’m not is bound to knock that pride around a bit.

If my pride takes a knock in this respect, how do I recover from it? Do I feel the need to claw my way back to that original relative position at all cost, or can I still find pleasure in my accomplishments or value?

I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with - my only issue with what you’ve written were these two statements:

"Guess what: Bob met a nice girl" is not gossip; — uncanni

gossip is, by definition, not harmless — uncanni

Everything else I agree with.

But that is not contained in the definition of gossip: gossip is, by definition, not harmless. You want to change the definition of gossip. — uncanni

I disagree - gossip, by definition, is idle talk about other people’s lives that may not necessarily be confirmed as true. It is neither harmful nor harmless by nature.

This post does not only refer to romantic love; it aims to define love as an emotion shared among humans and what comprises their world. I have been mulling over it for a while and even attempted to engage my sister into a discussion about it.

She defines love as innate and the ability to love as a gift. I say the ability to feel love is innate but you choose who to love. My sister feels choice limits love which is an insurmountable emotion. I feel choice makes love a very precious gift because you are gifting someone the most sincere aspect of yourself, therefore opening yourself up to vulnerability.

So the question I pose to you is, how do you define love? Do you feel that you start out loving everyone and everything like my sister does? — TessiePooh

The way I see it, we tend to talk about love in two different ways:

Love as a feeling of value, preference or desire for someone or something; that inspires

Love as a decision or choice to increase awareness, connection and collaboration.

When we feel desire, value or preference for an object, we often say that we ‘love’ it. But it’s not the same feeling as ‘love’ for a person, a pet, or even for a concept or idea. Because these feelings of desire, value or preference are for more than an object or its function - they’re for the potential that we perceive in what we experience.

So when we’re inspired to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with the potential of what we experience, we notice that there isn’t any boundary to that experience as such. This is the vulnerability you referred to: if we open ourselves fully to the experience, then where is the limit? By choosing the point at which we limit love, we not only protect ourselves from this vulnerability, we also turn our ability to love into a precious gift.

But I think your sister is right: We have the capacity to love everyone and everything with the strength of a mother’s love for her child. It is a choice we make to open ourselves up to that kind of vulnerability in the way we interact with the world. But we also fear that vulnerability - and we’re taught to limit our capacity to love for our own ‘protection’.

Gossip is a very human entity that starts from childhood. Just the other day, my 8-year-old cousin and her friend were caught passing notes in class, the content of which was comments about their classmates. Although they weren't being malicious, this shows how human it is to gossip. Humans are thrilled by drama, this is why soap operas are so successful!

As others have stated before, gossiping enables us to socially fit in; we learn what is acceptable behaviour so we do not end up being a topic of gossip. Why do we as humans find it thrilling to "spill the tea?" Learning of another's misfortune gives us a sense of schadenfreude, "at least my life isn't as bad as theirs." — TessiePooh

Gossip, whether malicious or ‘harmlessly’ passing comment, contains value positioning information. I think the thrill is in recognising the capacity we have to manipulate this aspect of reality: more specifically, how the words we use in sharing information can change where we are positioned according to the value structures of the world in relation to those around us.

1 Gossiping satisfies a need to feel superior to or better off than others. "Guess what: Bob met a nice girl" is not gossip; "Guess what: Bob has herpes," is.

2. Gossiping can also be a way of forming alliances against the person gossiped about by sharing the juicy tidbits with someone else, and it can also be a way of taking an indirect dig at the person with whom the gossip is shared: "Do you know what Bob said about you? He said you're ugly and stupid. Can you believe it??"

3. As implied in # 1, gossiping takes our minds off our own miseries. So Bob tells his co-workers, "Guess what: Joe has contracted HIV."

4. Gossip is a way of spreading lies and distortions: "Guess what: Joe got HIV from having sex with a gerbil." — uncanni

I think when we define ‘gossip’ with negative examples only, we fail to take into account the necessity of value positioning information in how we make sense of the world and our place in it. It’s easy enough to alter all of these above comments to positive examples of ‘gossip’ that edify the subject rather than put them down.

“Bob met a nice girl” is as much an example of value positioning information as “Bob has herpes”. When we say they’re not the same type of information, I think we’re missing an opportunity to understand why we gossip and how we can alter its potential to cause harm.

Here are some concrete examples: the shooters at Black churches and synagogues break my heart. The history of lynching pains me deeply; so do the Holocaust, rape, incest, My Lai, serial killing, etc., etc. ad infinitum. The kind of mentality that is capable of such actions is a very scarey mentality to contemplate. — uncanni

I’m with you here. That we are angered and frustrated by the pain humanity inflicts on itself and the world is heartbreaking. That people believe they need to add to that pain in order to end it is illogical, when you think about. But I also understand that most people aren’t prepared to think about it when they’re in the thick of these emotions.

That’s why we think about these things from a temporal distance. There are things we need to recognise in here about our own capacity to inflict damage when we justify our actions based on emotion.

What you’ve written shows a common approach to hate in recent times. Instead of hating the person, we seek to understand their thinking and the circumstances of their life. It makes it possible to conclude that this person is/was mentally disturbed, traumatized or very sick. I’m going to challenge your thinking a little further here. Because we can’t blame these people entirely for their actions, but we can’t accept them as part of society, either. Pity is an interesting emotion - it isn’t hate, but there’s a certain distancing effect that’s still a long way from love.

So I guess I'd have to say that I hate the destruction, cruelty and deprivation that very sick people inflict on the world. — uncanni

It’s easy enough to make this distinction while we’re talking conceptually, but I think we need to be honest here about what that means. When face to face with one of these ‘very sick people’, could we NOT hate them? Could we treat them with the dignity deserving of a human being - or would it be very difficult to respond to the person and not the behaviour or mentality that we hate?

Hate is a decision to deny reality based on very real feelings of fear, anger and frustration. That we can refrain from hating others by directing our emotions towards attacking the behaviour or mentality is certainly a step towards eradicating hate. The next step, I think, is to recognise how easily we can cause this destruction, cruelty and deprivation ourselves - how dangerously close all of us are to this ‘mentality’ or ‘disabling of conscience’ we define and separate out as pathological.

It’s frightening to be this honest about who we are as human beings, but I think that until we can look at people like Trump or Hitler and see ourselves in similar life circumstances, we won’t be able to effect the kind of change that we want to see in the world. Until we see that hate in these circumstances is not only understandable but also unnecessary, then we won’t recognise or be able to show others how to look for the potential to manifest a ‘better, loving reality’ from these adverse circumstances, too.

If you think love has no conditions, you are sadly mistaken.

That is why you love family and friends more than others.

If you do not, you do not know what love is. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I love my family and friends - that I put limitations on my love for others I recognise as fear on my part, not a necessary condition of love. I don’t need to love others less in order to love my family and friends as much as I do.

When we hate those who hate, are we justified?
— Possibility

Reciprocity rules say it is. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Reciprocity rules? Are you saying we should go back to ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’?

To tolerate those who do not tolerate others is empowering them. It rewards evil with good.

One is either for them or against them. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Tolerate is an interesting word, isn’t it? It doesn’t mean that we do nothing about what is happening, but that we have the capacity to endure it for a time. It doesn’t empower at all - it only looks like that to those who cannot see the bigger picture, or that real change occurs in time.

The world is not as black and white as you like to think it is.

What is free will? — Fruitless

In my view:

Will is defined as the faculty by which one determines and initiates action. In spacetime, we observe this as cause and effect, but the will doesn’t operate in spacetime. All cause and effect is determined and initiated according to what we refer to as potential: the capacity to develop and achieve.

As humans, we’re able to perceive this potential by correlating information from previous interactions, allowing us not only to determine or predict an action based on causal structures, but to arrange the causal structures that will initiate a desired effect. This is the basis of all our scientific and creative achievements. What we’re doing here is manipulating the very faculty by which an action is determined and initiated - before that action occurs in spacetime.

The more we understand about the causal structures of the unfolding universe, the more freedom we have to determine and initiate actions before they occur - even our own actions.

In applying this freedom of the will to our own actions, it helps to describe the process of cause and effect in relation to a yes/no choice with every interaction:

I choose to be aware.
I choose to connect.
I choose to collaborate.

If you travel faster than the speed of light you go back in time - theoretically. I don't think there exists limits to anything, and I'm curious as to why. — Fruitless

Theoretically, there are no limits to anything. But if you want to achieve anything beyond your own subjective, internal experience, then there are many limitations that you need to take into account and either work with or around - include your ability to observe all the detail from your perspective. This is the world we live in - and it’s much smaller and less detailed than the universe we can perceive or theorise.

But the fact that we can theorise and even perceive the potential of a much broader reality than the one we live in enables us to work with and around those limitations and achieve more than we might have thought possible.