I'm not a primatologist, so won't pretend to know all these instincts but a major one I can think of is chimps have estrus and cyclical reproduction. They can't help but have a mating season- which implies they cannot help but have offspring. — schopenhauer1
Thus there is an innate raising a child instinct along with a learned aspect of how to raise the young, but still seems to not be a choice. — schopenhauer1
It is theorised that the human shift towards the extreme K strategy end of the mating spectrum - the heavy investment required to being able to raise babies born neurally half-baked and utterly helpless - meant that something had to change to foster strong pair-bondings. Dads had to be given a biological incentive to stick around with the mum.
So the suppression of fertility signals was a neat trick. A male wouldn't know when a female was in heat. There wouldn't be the fighting over the right to mate, and instead the strategy would be to stick close with a female and bond by mating continuously. Females of course still might feel sexier at certain times of the month and go do a little cheating - playing the evolutionary game to their own advantage.
So yeah. Check the literature and all these kinds of things have been well debated. — apokrisis
But then the other side of that is that this aways was the case. We always were being swept along by evolved and successful cultural structures. And the idea that we have an individual choice is a new feature of the contemporary social order. It is an extra wee trick inserted into the game to increase the possibilities of cultural control while also increasing the requisite variety that evolution itself needs to feed off. — apokrisis
I guess this is what particularly annoys me about anti-natalism. There is this furious change going on right now before all our eyes. It should be fascinating as well as scary. And then we have all this whiney self-absorbed pessimism. — apokrisis
I understand why there might be an actual epidemic of depressive illness. I understand why there might be a feeling of existential helplessness. But those are symptoms of the more general rupture. And philosophy ought to be focused on where that is all heading. We don't know how to judge it because it is still happening. Meanwhile if you are depressed and helpless, seek treatment. Learn how to dig yourself out of your hole as best you can. Don't use philosophy as your excuse for inaction. Don't use it to block the possibility of making your own life better. — apokrisis
The version you give is one version, but as you know there are multiple versions for the origins of the suppression of fertility signals. — schopenhauer1
Okay, so you recognize that the ability to have more possibilities of thought (due to our lingusitic-cultural architecture) has provided us the ability to reflect on existence itself. Something no other species can do. The exaptation that comes from this is we can also see the absurd nature of living. We can have those existential angst moments and see things as repetitious, meaningless, etc. These are things which evolution did not necessarily provide for, but which is a result nonetheless. — schopenhauer1
Well, this is the assumption you make that annoys me about your self-group argument. You have an assumed (or hidden) underlying teleology in your theory. The group through dynamics is not just "doing" but somehow "progressing" and this is a value judgement that is inserted in the story you present. Though, I understand you do think that "progress" may lead to "extinction" due to fossil fuel overload (and it is almost too late). — schopenhauer1
Thank you for your concern (or what looks like concern). However, existential thinking is squarely what is most important as it is our day-to-day lives and evaluations of our lives. — schopenhauer1
trout pouts — apokrisis
It's like plastic tits, fake bums and trout pouts. You can blame modern culture for amplifying instinctual signals, but not for creating them. — apokrisis
Huh? I am always explicit on the telos.
What we are doing is the unthinking expression of the thermodynamic imperative. We find all this fossil fuel just sitting in the dirt. We can't help just building a great big bonfire out of it.
If we were thinking - and hoping to progress - we would realise that the fossil fuels are driving us. We are blindly responding to their open invitation. If we had any real utopian dreams, we would get back to living off the solar flux. Or waiting until we had the technical means for something actually long-term sustainable, like perhaps fusion power. — apokrisis
Well I am saying being passive is another choice. And one that relies on a faulty understanding of human nature.
If you complained quietly to yourself, you of course would get no reaction. But instead you post thread after thread with the same self-pitying lament.
To the degree you have some biological depression (brought on by a social situation), then sure you may get sympathy. And advice.
But a few of us may be here just to discuss actual philosophy. So a BS argument then deserves a good kicking. No apologies or excuses required. — apokrisis
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