Thanks; that sounds like a great wast to organize an essay. But I don't think that works for me. A chatbot could do it far better than I can.

Remember, it's all a story...with or without a definite conclusion. Open ended...for further exploration.
Philosophy is a Conversation. Here, writers and readers can be in close dialogue or a wild dance! — Amity

That sound more like my neighbourhood.
PS I love Roald Dahl.

In the Epicurean (or disutilitarian) sense, "pleasure" is synonymous with aponia and "happiness" with ataraxia (i.e. eudaimonia) such that "pleasure" is the means to the end "happiness". I agree they are not equivalent, as you suggest, but in this sense they do seem correlated strongly. — 180 Proof

Are those meanings the same in ancient Greek and modern English? I think Epicurus had a wider vocabulary of pleasures, or pleasurable experiences, than can be accessed via drugs.

It's not like I want to be, I want to think that life is more complicated than that. — Darkneos

It is.

But what if it really just boils down to that?

It doesn't.
If you don't get out of this loop, I have nothing further to contribute.

Well the thing is this is more getting into advanced AI, like AGI that the link is talking about. The issue is sorta "solving" human purpose by just giving the most immediate explanation. — Darkneos

I don't think human purpose is a problem to be solved.

If you think about it a lot of our lives and goals do revolve around pleasure, so much so that happily ever after is a common ending in a lot of media. — Darkneos

The central mistake of that hypothesis is the inaccurate equation of pleasure with happiness. As I've attempted to demonstrate earlier, pleasure is simple and fleeting; happiness is sustained and complex. While some short-term goals may focus on some particular pleasurable experience, long-term goals are aimed at individual varieties of happiness.

Like I said, I can't argue against it, and the more I think about the more it has me doubting the meaning of human existence and my reason for doing things. That all that stuff about love, meaning, and everything is just fanciful storytelling to avoid the reality that pleasure is what drives it all. It's very...bleak. — Darkneos

I looked at the quora entry. It's a too-heavily illustrated opinion piece.
So? If you're convinced, go with it.

Are there other nations where this kind of Dream is possible — jgill

Sure, but they all have a large number of dreaming poor who will stay poor - or maybe get deported and/or imprisoned. This isn't so much anAmerican dream as the basic stuff of fairy tales going back to the earliest societies that established economies of vast disparity. The very few lucky and talented traders, administrators, inventors and gladiators who make their mark and prosper in such a society are held up as beacons of hope to keep the toiling masses toiling without complaint.

I keep saying I don't want to do that but no matter what I do I always end up coming back to it. — Darkneos

Oh well, maybe you can can learn to take pleasure in it.

For interest's sake, I used your OP as a prompt for ChatGPT4, which provided this response. — Wayfarer

Good abstracts of articles on the subject - including some points I made in my original response - well presented. Shows that everything on the subject has already been written and posted on the internet. But it's remarkable how the bot chose and organized the relevant bits.
I don't see it pleasuring anyone to death.... or running the world.

European beer, huh? Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs... — Amity

We're still friends with Germany, Holland and Denmark, so that's all right. I find American beer insipid. Anyway, it's already more expensive than some of the Europeans. Oddly, so is the Canadian stuff, which isn't bad to drink. Since I haven't been able to drink anything stronger, I've become quite familiar with beer.

I don't think I can write an academic essay. So far, I've referenced only one philosopher on the subject, which has not been of general interest to philosophers, and I'm hard put to find a rebuttal. I'll probably just have pants it.

I was only interested in your original thoughts on the subject. — Vera Mont
Maybe you should as it explains it a bit more. — Darkneos

Simple enough. Thre guy who wrote that article didn't start this thread; you did. I asked you some questions early on, because I was interested in what you think.

Maybe, but if we do things we enjoy isn't that more or less the same thing? — Darkneos

Less. Much less. There are things we enjoy on a simple physical level, like chocolate or the smell of roses or a cold drink after a run. They're quite wonderful, for the few minutes the sensation lasts. But if we prolonged those experiences, they would become cloying, irksome or downright uncomfortable.
Then, there are emotional - we can say animal - pleasures, like a trusting relationship with a friend, the thriving of healthy offspring, the esteem of one's pack. These can give satisfaction for a lifetime.
Then there are things we enjoy on several levels, like making pottery (which is both sensual and creative), repairing airplane engines (which requires both dexterity and detection) or researching a cure for some illness (which takes discipline and meticulous observation). These pursuits can go on giving intellectual pleasure for years or decades - even in intervals of frustration and setbacks.

Maybe not or maybe we just want it to be more than it really is. — Darkneos

Some people do want life to mean more than it does, so they make up religions and nationalism and a lot of people follow those ideas. But, all the while they're doing that, they're also living experiences that nobody tells stories about. Like the burgher who sits in the front pew and his crotch itches during the service but he dares not scratch or even squirm in his seat because it would be undignified, people might notice and snicker and he would lose respect in the community. That man's experience is complex, acutely felt both physically and emotionally and accompanied by a train of conscious thought.
Experience is multiform and varied.
If you choose to reduce it to chemical narrative, you are much the poorer for that decision.

Some would argue that's just storytelling, making things out to be more than what they really are. — Darkneos

Chemicals that invent stories are far more interesting than chemicals that just want to experience physical pleasure. Still not an explanation for human complexity, of course.

Well our observations and experience could be mistaken. — Darkneos

As compared to what? If all experience is just chemicals and stories, why be concerned about their accuracy? OTOH, if you don't buy that explanation, your observations can provide an alternative theory.

I think what he's trying to get at it with the thermodynamics bit and the simplest solution being "best" is that bit about how if pleasure is the goal of human existence then just being hooked up to drugs is simplest instead of "living". — Darkneos

As so often happens, the operative word there is if. I argue that this assumption is simply wrong. So I go on to investigate why I think it's wrong and rely on my own observation, experience and reading to find alternative explanations.

Did you read the link? — Darkneos

No. I was only interested in your original thoughts on the subject.

I mean...why go through all those experiences? Just cut out the middleman. — Darkneos

Drugsare the middleman. I don't know about you, but I enjoy my experiences first-hand, directly. Emotions may be partly chemical, but they're also cerebral: what you think and remember is as much of your experience as what you taste and smell. Sight and hearing are more than simply chemical, too. Drugs and entertainments are an escape from experience that is unpleasant or tedious - not an acceptable substitute. The Quora poster is wrong, afaic.

Does it matter what I observe? — Darkneos

It should. What more reliable information will you ever get about reality than what you know?

Why care about the process of doing something or the journey if it's just the chemicals making us feel that way and driving us toward it? Again I don't like thinking that but can't argue against it. — Darkneos

There is a whole lot more to life than "just chemicals". There were plenty of chemicals floating around in the primordial ooze before some of them bumped into one another and formed complex molecules and eventually RNA. We've come a considerable way since then. You can't reduce human experience, thought, feeling, aspiration and activity to chemical reactions.

Where it suggests AI will solve the purpose of human existence and he lists some things like of pleasure is the goal then we’d just be hooked up to drugs all the time without needing to bother with experiences. — Darkneos

Is that what you see as the purpose of human existence? (assuming it has one) Is that what you desire for yourself? Being blissed-out on drugs and lying around in a sustained orgy of self-gratification? The notion doesn't do a thing for me. It sure wouldn't for a baseball player, an engineer, a psychologist or a composer. There are pleasures far more complex and satisfying than the chemical. People have talents and ambitions. Most don't have the time and opportunity to reach their potential - or even try to reach for their imagined potential.

In order to eke out a living, so that they can have their own basic necessities and some aspects of what makes them happy: material comfort, a family, social standing. Those who can, make whatever compromise is necessary to attain at least part of what they they ideally want. The other half have no choices at all, except attempting to avoid one bad situation or another peril and stay alive, seizing those moments of respite, play or affection that make life worthwhile.

That sounds like either ruining the human experience or “revealing” it for what it is, that being just chemical reactions with our storytelling to make it seem like more.

Is that what you observe in your own daily contact with people? There may well be a fair whack of escapism these days, but look around and you'll understand what people are escaping from. The far greater danger we're increasingly witnessing is the degeneration of youth into brutality and blood-lust - savagery. Social media as Lord of the Flies.

What’s gonna happen when you replace most jobs with AI, how will people live? — Darkneos

What will that AI be producing? For whom? If there is nobody earning, there is nobody buying, the machines stop making money for owners, while still using up energy. Meanwhile, people who have been losing their income have no health insurance, their homes are repossessed, their debts won't be paid, the banks will go bust while houses and apartments stand vacant and families are on the street. The economy collapses. (You don't need more than 5% unemployment to trigger a recession; in the Great depression it reached 25%. 40% is sufficient to bring down an economy.)
When the economy breaks down, so does law and order and thus government.

People scramble for food and shelter; some choose to co-operate and form communities; they squat in abandoned buildings, plant gardens, pool skills and resources. Others rely on raiding the productive ones. So the productive communities learn to defend themselves. There is widespread armed conflict, until a groups of communities form federations of trading partners and allies, establish laws based on shared value systems... and a new civilization grows.
The wealthy who have benefited hugely from sudden advancements in technology for which no compensating social arrangements were made find themselves in possession of very large numbers in a data base that can't be traded for a pot of beans. They're reduced to doing their own drudgery. Unless they jump off tall buildings.

....

yet on Twitter I see people thinking it’s gonna lead us to some utopia unaware of what it’s doing now. I mean students are just having ChatGPT write their term papers now. It’s going to weaken human ability and that in turn is going to impact how we deal with future issues.

What we have is artificial, but not intelligent. A chat bot sounds clever by parroting words written by humans. They're kind of like the white plastic face on a robot, to make it more appealing.
The real function of self-teaching or adaptive computer programs is in operating machines for industry, commerce, transportation and communications. That's where the jobs go. There is no point in a diploma that can be earned by parroting a parrot and there is no job at the end of it.

The only way computing could bring about a utopian - or at least, reasonable - arrangement for humans is if it were genuinely intelligent and took over control of the economic and political organization of society. But it won't bring about our downfall, either: we're doing that ourselves.

If everyone only did work that they “loved and believed in” civilization would collapse in a week. — an-salad

Deservedly, if 'civilization' depends on most of its members dragging through life, unhappy and frustrated. There are people in turnip fields who would enjoy working with the machines and people doing paperwork who would be happy to plant turnips and people sweating over machines who dream of a white collar and air-conditioned office. For every necessary task, there are people suited to and satisfied by that kind of work.
As for the unnecessary tasks, they are assigned by those people who are themselves unnecessary.

What everyone needs is air, water, food, shelter, companionship and the opportunity to make themselves useful and earn respect. What nobody needs is an elite who take much and contribute little, while exercising the power to inflict damage on other. Unfortunately, while many humans recognize this, we can't seem to muster a collective good sense.

How do you wake from the American dream? As for me, usually in a cold sweat at 3:30 am.

Now, how do you legislate the viewing age of people in their own home?
My only issue with links to You Tube is that video content can be embedded. Sometimes I don't want great big moving pictures cluttering up my bandwidth; I prefer the option to follow a link or not.
Otherwise, this doesn't affect me either way, since I already avoid certain platforms.

It's possible to quote something that was posted on social media without including a link.
As for You Tube contributions, it's not that hard to post the title of a documentary or commentary and let those who are interested search You Tube for it.
Since so much of social media content these days is toxic, and so many platforms are controlled by what we naively refer to as 'bad actors', avoiding links with them seems a sound decision.

The question who is going to enforce that is a different question, but substantially it may be a violation of law. — Tobias

It wasn't a question. There is no international body with the power to stop abuses.

Thanks for the advice. It does help.

What inspires you to write? — Amity

The fascinating, complicated, up-and-down craziness of humanity. Religion, art, science, and philosophy are all products of that curly ball of gray fluff in our heads. And they're all connected by skinny electric wires covered in myelin, as well as by evolutionary and cultural roots and words, so many ambiguous words! Dividing them into clearly distinct categories is a Solomonian task.

I've been musing over Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy in which, on the subject of religions, he makes no severe cuts between philosophy and psychology; his question is only, "by which door to enter". I figure, if it was good enough for him, it'll do me well enough.

As for ice cream, I have maybe two helpings throughout a summer; I come alive on European beer.
(Socrates was dead wrong, btw: a miserable life is worth examining for possible improvement; a happy one doesn't require analysis. If it ain't broke, keep your mitts off of it!)

I'm still trying to figure out the where the line is between philosophy and psychology.
Ice cream sounds better than either.

In the presence of an international agency or commission enforcing the International System of Human Rights, we can underline a principle of subversion or even veiled conflicts of interests. — Ludovico Lalli

What presence? There is no such agency interfering with the internal law-enforcement of any nation, except occasionally a military peacekeeping force to keep a civil war under control - when what you call the duty-holder of a state - that is, its constituted government - has already collapsed.


If a group of nations mutually agree to a set of principles by which they undertake to abide, each contributing to an oversight committee and/or international court, how then

we can underline a principle of subversion or even veiled conflicts of interests. — Ludovico Lalli

They all have the same interest: to protect the rights of their people. If one state doesn't subscribe to those principles, it can withdraw; the institution has no jurisdiction over it. That's why some governments can oppress and persecute their own citizenry: there is no international body with the power to stop abuses.

Many administrations are perfectly comfortable ignoring the rights laid out in their own constitution. Why would they be hampered by the unenforceable suggestions of an international body?
Those governments that are bound by the demands of their population and the thinking of that population may be influenced by international ideals.
That's not subversion; that's democracy.

The content of most of the National Constitutions is plagiarized by International Human rights which thus do not create nothing of new. — Ludovico Lalli

Not exactly. The UN has taken the best - i.e. most progressive, tolerant, inclusive clauses of various constitutions - principles on which people broadly agree - to make up a comprehensive set of rules intended to protect all people from all kinds of persecution and oppression.
The fact that it cannot be applied is a proof of our failure as a species.

So what is our human nature? I'll go out on a limb here. It is a bunch of inborn genetic, biological, neurological, mental, and psychological processes, structures, capacities, drives, and instincts which are modified during development and by experience and socialization. I'll try to be more specific. We are social animals. We like and want to be around each other. We care most for those closest to us - our families and especially our children. We are born with temperaments that express themselves from the very start. We are born with an instinctual drive and capability for language. We are born with an inborn drive to find a mate, usually, but not always of the opposite sex. This is from William James. I'm not sure whether it will seem relevant, but it does to me and I like it. — T Clark

:up: That pretty much sums it up.

But the question I wish to ask is, in some sense, aren't all universal moral systems inevitably going to be flawed in some way and therefore rendered futile? — Dorrian

No.
While some philosophical discussions of morality may be futile and pointless, no society of sentient beings can function without a shared system of values on which its rules are made, obeyed and enforced.
While there is no universal, objective morality, each society has a moral basis that accords with the world-view shared by its members. On that belief system, that moral understanding, each society enacts its governing principles or constitution, its social organization and legal code.
Those pointless discussions are generally aimed at better understanding, communicating and articulating the moral principles by which we operate.

I have gone from one probable topic to four possibles. I've done a little bit of research on all of them. ATM, I'm leaning toward the last. *sigh* More reading. But the very idea is a great motivator to learn, and I'm sure there will be a heap more learning when the essays are in.

Yes, and I see little reason to doubt that people in general will not vote for anything they think will have a negative effect on their prosperity, aspirations or accustomed lifestyle. — Janus

That's the problem. People believe all kinds things they're told by a notorious liar, and then are dismayed when the outcome is different from the promise. Conversely, when the same notorious liar says exactly what he intends to do and then does it and it turns out exactly as the critics predicted, they look for someone other than the notorious liar to blame.
According to H. L. Mencken:

No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.

Do you not think that the mythic has any power on outer life? — Jack Cummins

No. Dance all you want, it won't rain in a drought; no sacrifice of goats will prevent a volcano from erupting; no consultation of the oracle halts an invading army. Civilizations have died believing in those methods.

One aspect of the influence is positivity and negativity in the social sphere. I know that others respond so differently according to my own mindset. — Jack Cummins

Again, no. They respond to your words and actions. Your positive or negative mindset affects your words and actions, but the thoughts end at the pia membrane of brain. It's easy to attribute effects to the wrong cause: you're aware of your state of mind from the subjective side; other people become aware of it through how you express your state of mind.

Mindset may have a real affect in influencing so much which happens in outer life. It also has the power to demoralise or inspire others. It creates ripple consequences. — Jack Cummins

On a very small, intimate scale, this is true: you show what you're thinking through facial expression and body language, even without speaking, and that demeanour has an effect on the world immediately around you. Within very strict limits. Try, when you're feeling down, dispiriting an exuberant drunk. Try inspiring someone who is tone deaf to compose a symphony.

Right now, my own mood is quite buoyant: I've done the chore I wasn't looking forward to; there is a loaf baking in the bread machine; I have an idea for a short story that might be appropriate for a contest; there is a new episode of Vera on public tv tonight. OTOH, I don't think any of these happy thoughts will save a single species of butterfly from extinction. And the opinion I'm expressing here will certainly be read as negativity, which is unfortunate, but I'm not letting it get me down.

You seem to dismiss prayer, prophecy, which alongside medication which may be essential aspects of the finetuning of subconscious depths. I am a little surprised by this as you write fiction which draws on mythic dimensions. — Jack Cummins

The trick is to know the difference. I have no illusion that my stories, or wishes, or conversations with the ancestors, or dreams or supplications to the genie of the keyboard have any effect on the external world. Stories don't make me young or healthy; they don't reanimate the dead or erase my mistakes or change the course of elections.

Your inner life - dream-interpretation, meditation, mysticism, hallucination or divination - affects you, your attitudes, your approach to problem solving. That will certainly help to determine your reactions to external events; your actions will certainly have some effect on the outcomes. But you have no control over what the rest of the world throws at you, or what limits and constraints reality imposes on you.

It's nice to have a positive attitude - I usually do... or did until last fall. But if you're locked in a cell, waiting for deportation, parole hearing or execution, none of your hopeful ideation will bring about a sudden reversal. I know that's not our common experience, but for many thousands of people, it's their exact situation. For billions more, the range of possibility, the freedom of action, the scope of ambition is so limited by circumstance as to be invisible. They may be praying fervently, but Fate is just as deaf as any of our gods.

Yet Trump will his utmost to create destruction and destroy the economy and the foreign relations that the US has. In the end this will anger a lot Americans. — ssu

That's my hope. Right now, he's pissing off veterans again - the US has alot of veterans from its many unsuccessful wars - and maybe servicemen, too, which should make it harder for him to consolidate a military dictatorship. OTOH, those very actions may precipitate a change of leadership (".... peacefully, at his big white house, while tweeting in all caps....") After all, he's an old man and Vance is a relatively young man, sane, intelligent and master of the quick change. That's my fear.
Perilous times. But first, we just have to get through this brutal winter.

There only one answer: only the people themselves. — ssu

Not yet. And the division is so deep, maybe never without a revolution or civil war. Which, depends on whether the present regime has time and sufficient support to entrench a dictatorship, or their egregious actions cause massive opposition. Even if the progressive forces win either kind of confrontation, it will require leader of enormous vision, courage, wisdom, persuasive powers and stamina to close the rift.
I'm not expecting a rapid or neat resolution.

I think the Americans could be better served by a total reform of the two party system. Centrist Democrats and actual conservatives, not the MAGA-church, could find themselves and simply demand justice, respect of the Constitution and the end of oligarch rule. — ssu

Yes, of course. The electoral process has always been flawed and the corruption that's crept in over the last few decades renders it damn near unworkable. But who can effect a major reform? In Canada, we've been flirting with and even courting a more representative model than first-past-the-post, but nobody can get it done, because the legislature is composed of people who won by the old method and have a vested interest. The US system is so deeply mired in money and circuses, I can't see politicians being able to change it, even if they were willing.

This actually is the reality. How you kick out the MAGA lunatics will be the question, — ssu

Not for us; for Americans. Other countries are forced to defend themselves against Trump's economic wrecking crew, and that will hurt innocent Americans. I can only hope that other countries won't be held responsible for that pain: Trump is well practiced in diverting blame to things he caused onto his victims, and far too many American voters have fallen for his line of bullshit more than once.
Are the Democrat up to organizing a good enough opposition, or will the bitterness erupt in random acts of violence against random scapegoats? One glimmer of light: this insane pogrom on government workers is getting some blowback from former Trump supporters.

Perhaps the way here is just to keep the door open for the US to join it's allies once this mental breakdown called the Trump administration is over — ssu

I think they're sensible enough to do that. And hope a savvy Dem leadership reaches out to them though non-official channels. For sure, there will be a thriving black market back and forth, so lines of communication will still be open.

This is exactly what I thought. He came to power on the heels of a bogus war. War is his friend. But everyone I talked to about it nixed the idea. — frank

It's been working to Netanyahu. But then, his war is not so costly that they'll depose him and lock him up for fraud.

Indeed. The only viable strategy for democratic nations right now is to work around the US. Withhold intelligence, reconfigure trade agreements among themselves, shutting the US out whenever possible, exclude the Trump regime from discussions, negotiations and diplomatic endeavours. It won't be easy... but it may not have to be carried on for too long: once the Trumpites are kicked out, relations can resume.

It is absolutely crazy, but it's understandable when people are so full of hubris that they think that their government is just a service that costs too much and could better done without. — ssu

They have better uses for the money: their own enrichment. There is more to the wrecking of government: Trump wants to be king, which he can't be until the constitution is well and truly scrapped. So do Vance and Musk.... I wonder which one will do him in. Either way, it won't be an improvement: he's evil, crazy and stupid; they're evil, crazy and smart.

And these anarco-libertarians who seem to think they are the heroes in an Ayn Rand novel and their government is their enemy,

I doubt any of these thugs have ever read a novel. Trump probably couldn't.

go smashing everything is just creative destruction and the means to get cuts implemented because the actual legislative course wouldn't work... because liberal democracy and liberal democracies don't work.

Not because it doesn't work - it worked fine until their forerunners corrupted it - but because it still limps along and might bring them down, unless it's destroyed very quickly.

Likely Canadians start to think of Americans like the Mexicans do, as the "Gringos". — ssu

We've been eyeing them askance since Bush II, but Obama was a welcome change. Now, we're back to 1811, waiting for the invasion. We need to make friends across both ponds and around the Gulf of whatever it's the gulf of, to trade and form alliances around the disunited states of America. Trudeau won't be here to do it, and I despair of a Polievre government, so..... we are either in some god's hands or royally f'd, maybe both.

Or who are you meaning? — ssu

Russia?
Yes, Trump is hell-bent on destroying the US government, department by department, agency by agency. He doesn't give a flying fig about international relations or long-term stability: he wants revenge on his opponents, real and imagined, harm to everyone who has ever been 'disrespectful' to him and the last big money-grab before closing time.

First, being very interested in Marxism, I have read a lot of history focusing on communist movements. Here, activists' faith in the eventual triumph of communism, its inevitability, was often a potent force motivating their persistence in the face of adversity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And yet communism didn't triumph; the prophecy was never fulfilled. Communism exists, if it still does, in tiny pockets that have to deal with the capitalist world on its terms, not theirs. Moreover, those true believers were among the first victims of a system that called itself communist while it was, in fact a monetized oligarchy.

Essentially, the fear that war must come motivates people to actualize that very fear, hoping to start such a conflict on more favorable terms, rather than seeking to avoid a conflict, since they see time as "on the side of the enemy." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Appeasement has a very poor track record in the face of a determined aggressor.

Yes people act on both hope and fear, as well as anger, lust and greed. It takes no great acuity to predict that a corner animal will attack, but it's not the expectation that causes him to attack, its the imminent threat of death. Predicting that something that's happened a thousand times in similar circumstances will happen again doesn't cause it to happen, though it may cause people to prepare for that event.

It does go back to the Old Testament times and comes with an element of belief in divination. — Jack Cummins

It goes back a good deal farther than the OT. People have been throwing sticks, consulting their ancestors, staring into fire, eating mushrooms and going into trances since before civilization. From the earliest civilizations, they made pictures in the stars, cut open chickens, tossed coins, inhaled smoke and went into trances. Having so much imagination, humankind is constantly uncertain, aware of the many possibilities resulting from any situation. We desire control over our lives and our environment. So we look for logical cause and effect chains, for patterns; we hypothesize and predict. We long for an intelligence behind the patterns - an intelligence like ours, with which we can communicate, which we can influence. Hence, prayer and prophecy, ritual and sacrifice.

Other animals don't do this. They are certain of their needs and desires and act on them, without the slightest doubt that they control their own actions, and nothing outside of themselves. Domestic animals are aware that humans control their environment and so try to influence the behaviour of their humans.

Prayer and prophecy have no effect on the universe; there is no almighty master in the sky. But the belief that prompts faith in higher powers or fate or fortune or destiny affects how we perceive things (what information we pay attention to, how accurately we assess the situation and our own capabilities) and how we respond (fight, flight, denial, strategy, subterfuge, surrender). Every time our soothsayers are perceptive enough to guage the likely outcome accurately and a prediction comes true (more or less; it's usually couched in ambiguous language, open to interpretation: mediums hedge their bets), we come to rely more on their prognostications. When they're wrong, we cope with whatever does happen, move on and forget. The same with dreams. Our brain keeps working when we're asleep, processing information we may not even realize we have, forming patters, calculating the odds and often coming up with an accurate projection. Those are the dreams of which we take notice, which we report to others. We ignore all the incidental memories, fantasies and surreal images our subconscious throws up.

Anxiety dreams are something else. They tell us less about the external world than our own abilities. We know what we're capable of and how much we can affect the environment. We know, even if we don't make an honest accounting when we're awake. Most o the people who had faith in their ability to traverse Niagara Falls died trying. Thousands are forgotten; only the 16 who survived were celebrated. Faith walks on water.

You say that there are no situations whereby faith has any power personally or collectively in bringing about desired ends, which does not make sense to me. Every time a desired end is thought of and actioned it involves a creative leap of faith. This is not bound up with religion but may involve some sense of being able to shape destiny. On the collective level, protest movements and the entire radical spirit( such as the 60s counterculture) may have been about a culture of faith inspired changes. — Jack Cummins

We may be using the term differently. I use faith to mean belief unfounded in observable fact. I use belief to mean assumptions based on experience and/or learning. I use trust to mean confidence in the truthfulness of a source of information, or the character of a person, based on personal knowledge. I use conviction to mean a philosophy regarding the world and one's relationship to it.
The concept of destiny is bound with the belief in a guiding principle or purpose to [human] life - which is contradictory to individuals shaping it. That's an eat-your-cake-and-have-it kind of idea held by most humans.

Protest movements are collective actions intended to bring about a change. Whether they succeed is not a matter of how much faith the participants have but how many and how persistent they are, on how strong and resolute the powers in office are: which side is able to intimidates the other. Certainly, it takes imagination to envision a more desirable state of affairs and hope of success to organize an effort to bring it about. It takes courage to oppose the ruling elite's enforcement agents.
Failed revolutions and their collateral damage are buried in unmarked graves and scholarly footnotes; the successful ones commemorated in statues, street names, annual holidays and history books. Just like the prophecies and dreams: their worth is measured only after the results are known.

Prophecy is a biblical term. The ancient prophets saw what was going on, interpreted it according to their belief-system and predicted an outcome.
" Look east: a great big empire is expanding this way. Way bigger than we can defend ourselves against. But our god should be able to protect us. The king was remiss in his observance of the religious rites and the god is miffed with us. Therefore the barbarians will win."

Prediction depends on several factors: accuracy of observation, knowledge of the characters of key players, reading of the societal trend, understanding of the prevailing circumstances and the probability of each likely outcome. A clever prophet, if he's adept in all those assessments, can then choose to report his prognostication straight, like the February groundhog, embellished like a sci-fi author, or spun according to the prophet's desired result.

In order to have a self-fulfilling prophecy, you'd need a predictor of great influence. Someone people listen to and adjust their actions accordingly. That's not a writer of fiction, nor an older brother who warns you of a peril you're courting, nor a scientist or jurist; that's a government spokesman or Nobel prize winning economist or revered media pundit... and even they are usually ignored.

Prophecies don't fulfill themselves. People act in predictable ways.

Personally, I have often wondered if my own black hole states of fear have triggered the manifestation of negative experience. — Jack Cummins

The negative experiences were going to happen anyway. Your state of mind may make it more difficult for you to deal with them. Under that, I wonder if there is a modicum of self-blame: "I was afraid this would happen, and now it's happened. Did I cause it?" No, you didn't cause it. You were alert enough to discern the probability and that's why you were afraid.

Through faith, as opposed to fear, is it possible to create desired ends individually and collectively? — Jack Cummins

I'm not aware of any situation in which this worked. The thing about faith is, it's never wrong - by definition. If it fails, doesn't bring about the desired result, it's because your faith wasn't strong enough: it's you fault. If the desired result is achieved, it's not to your credit; it's because faith enlisted the help of a deity, to whom you must now be grateful. Gods never lose; mortals never win. Faith is a sucker's game.

Hope you're right.

I find the occasional, casual dip into You Tube more informative.
Bonus: if it's too upsetting, you can always switch to Bibi the monkey.

Don't even try to beat them; join up and help them eat Europe. Then Greenland, then North America, then central America, then....