Yes, you can have depressed animals, but not ones that wish they were never born. Not ones that know they don't live in a utopian world. Not ones that can at any moment, hate what they have to do to get by. — schopenhauer1
it assumes human consciousness is the highest degree of consciousness that can be attained by animals, it is highly likely there exists non-human animals elsewhere with higher degrees of consciousness to where "existential thoughts," do not plague or exasperate them. — Cobra
I would say "existential thoughts," are quite primitive and come from neurotic lower degrees of consciousness, in fact, I'd even say it arises from being one of the most stupid, in comparison to a more advanced brain. — Cobra
you begin calling the moral framework of animals into question — Cobra
Now, why would these people get miserable about these things? Not all but a lot of them are just plain social constructs, nothing at all to do with real life. — Sir2u
Do you think that many of the animals have these problems in their lives? Surely if they don't have the same reasons for not wanting to have been born, or for wanting to kill themselves then they would not think about it. — Sir2u
May be that is what is missing from the people that hate what they do, they cannot see the benefit of doing it. If there is no benefit, why are they doing it? — Sir2u
Would this be acceptable to you as well as footnotes on the pages you are cited, pointing to your UN here? — MSC
And I believe that having the opportunity to choose whether we die fighting or just die is beautiful.
What do you think? — dussias
It's just dealing with one damn thing after another. — schopenhauer1
Humans socially construct almost all cultural elements- which we use to survive. — schopenhauer1
I doubt that anyone would say that they reason like humans do, because they are not humans. But the question is do they reason in some other way?That's assuming animals can have "reasons" in ways that humans do. — schopenhauer1
This goes beyond the job itself to the needs behind needing the job. Remember group-think. — schopenhauer1
Are you going to put out defenses, like a squid its ink, that reinforce not resenting the situation because of X reason (Don't be a whiny bitch.. etc.)? — schopenhauer1
Like this guy says, it's "always something": — Inyenzi
A lot of them yes, but not all help us to live better.
Having a job is a social construct, designed to help us survive. But, as you say, lots of people hate what they do. Getting married is a social construct, designed to manage the properties and belongings of the people and to a certain degree stop bad genetic problems. But how many people hate being married?
Lots of these social constructs make your life suck. Taxes, social security, pension plans, mortgages, child support, alimony, credit cards, were all designed to make life, survival easier. But a lot of them don't do that, even if they are as some say "necessary evils"
Political parties(not politicians), armies, professional groups, social groups suck up peoples money and time and most people do not benefit in the least from them except as a pay check recipient or a most liked idiot on the site.
And not fitting in to, not agreeing with, not living up to the expectations, or not getting what you expected from these social constructs is what makes people hate things.
Why would anyone want to waste time and energy hating something, just because we can. Is it because we can reason? — Sir2u
This is where we find ourselves. — schopenhauer1
being allowed to live — Sir2u
Do they have innate knowledge of where to build their house, or do they reason that it would be safer uphill from the wet ground? — Sir2u
Either way it puts human into a bit of a pickle. Is our reasoning ability based on innate knowledge or do we learn to reason? — Sir2u
Why do you say this? — dussias
Where do you live? — dussias
When you say "being allowed to live" I can only agree with you if you live in a really shitty situation, where you are controlled to an important extent. — dussias
Do you know about life in North Korea? Cuba? — dussias
Depends on the animal. A rabbit is probably closer to innate. — schopenhauer1
If you mean innate knowledge of what to do, no. The ability to deduct, inference, predict, may be different in us due to linguistic-minds that allow for higher degrees (or degrees at all) of constant deliberation and decision-making. — schopenhauer1
However, with these greater degrees of freedom we have, we are still (mainly) driven by certain necessities (survival, comfort, entertainment). — schopenhauer1
So here we are with this highly deliberative/deliberating brain that must contend with unmovable circumstances. Thus you have a gap in this particular human animal, not seen in the rest. Here is the existential gap. — schopenhauer1
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