I have some questions for all. 1. Why do we love to hate, hate to live, and live to die? 2. Why do we choose death over life, prefering to die in the most miserable painful ways we can find? 3. Why do we wish to exist only to end existance? 4. Why do we express emotions which aren't real, and if most expressions are fake, why do we express our feelings at all? 5. If we live in a world, where babies are hated before they come out of the womb, are we born to hate ourselves and our children, and is this the natural state for a species to be in? 6. Forget about feeling, as feelings can never be accurately described, this means love, this means hate, this means all emotions are impossible to describe to those who cannot feel it. What is hate and how can hate be explained in a rational way? 7. If the world is organized around hate, and if hate is the guiding emotion that controls our planet, why don't we hate bacteria, viruses, germs, pollution, and all who threaten our species? 8. Could the human species ever learn to organize around anything other than hate? If we had alien visitors would we instinctively hate them before their ship could land and shoot it down? 9. If we were visited by aliens, and we decided to declare war on all aliens in advance before any good or bad aliens showed up, and these aliens arrived to save us from ourselves, cure the world of disease, and help us into space, would we rather die here on earth fighting them or would we learn what we could? 10. If you could ask an alien any question, and seek any knowledge or technology in the universe, what would you ask and what would you seek? These are 10 questions, each person should provide 10 unique answers to each of these 10 questions, and if your answers are not unique, just read. I'm searching for mind expanding answers, answers that will make a person think of this whole set of questions in a new way, to cause a paradigm shift of how we think about these questions.
I have some answers for all. 1. I love to love, love to live, and live to live. 2. I always choose life over death, prefering to live, even in the most miserable painful ways if life must be so. 3. I wish to exist to any end of existance? 4. I express emotions that are real, and never express emotions that are fake. 5. I live in a world, where babies are loved before they come out of the womb, are we are born to love ourselves and our children, and is this the natural state for a species to be in. 6. Never forget about feelings, as feelings can be accurately described, this means love, this means hate, this means all emotions are always possible to describe to those who can feel them. Love and hate can always be explained in rational ways. 7. The world is organized around love, and since love is the guiding emotion that controls our planet, we love all life. 8. the human species has learned to organize around love, and around hate? this is why we have evolved into civilizations. And this is why we have developed laws and a justice system. If we had alien visitors we would instinctively want to befriend them. 9. If we were visited by aliens, and we would decide to befriend them in advance, and these aliens might even have arrived to save us from ourselves, cure the world of disease, and help us into space? Then we would know that we did that right "good" thing, and would be eternally greatfull to them. 10. If you could ask an alien any question, and seek any knowledge or technology in the universe, what would you ask and what would you seek? Hi! Welcome to our planet! You will be always welcome here! And our scientists just as anxious as your scientists are to exchange knowledge and technology for the betterment of our universe that we mutually share.
1. Why do we love to hate, hate to live, and live to die? I don't know anyone that fits this catagory 2. Why do we choose death over life, prefering to die in the most miserable painful ways we can find? or this 3. Why do we wish to exist only to end existance? or this 4. Why do we express emotions which aren't real, and if most expressions are fake, why do we express our feelings at all? faked emotions due to politeness, civilised behaviour, cultural 'norms', mirroring others emotions, hiding. Real emotions due to a subconscious desire to impart your feelings to others for some self fulfilling purpose or because you can't control them. Emotion is a natrual response to an external stimuli. Laughter being the healthiest, most contagious form of emotional expression. 5. If we live in a world, where babies are hated before they come out of the womb, are we born to hate ourselves and our children, and is this the natural state for a species to be in? western phenomenon if at all. Not widespread feeling. 6. Forget about feeling, as feelings can never be accurately described, this means love, this means hate, this means all emotions are impossible to describe to those who cannot feel it. What is hate and how can hate be explained in a rational way? Hate manifests from 'fear' ultimately. Thus a naturally occurring emotion yet very self destrcutive. 7. If the world is organized around hate, and if hate is the guiding emotion that controls our planet, why don't we hate bacteria, viruses, germs, pollution, and all who threaten our species? With non human things, we are comfortable/secure enough to admit our fear of them instead. 8. Could the human species ever learn to organize around anything other than hate? If we had alien visitors would we instinctively hate them before their ship could land and shoot it down? We would naturally 'fear' them and take appropriate action. We can not anticipate their characteristics as they are 'alien' to us. Embracing something alien without precaution is fool hardy. Precaution does not mean violence btw. 9. If we were visited by aliens, and we decided to declare war on all aliens in advance before any good or bad aliens showed up, and these aliens arrived to save us from ourselves, cure the world of disease, and help us into space, would we rather die here on earth fighting them or would we learn what we could? No. But if they had the power to do this, they would anticpate our reaction and take appropriate measures to protect themselves from it. War of sorts would occur. Children resist parental control even though it is for their own good. This is human nature. We do not like 'control'. Did India welcome the Britts when we decided to make it part of the British empire. Did they lay down there arms, and say yep, we'll take the health care, the improved education and the work opportunities or did they fight us? Did they not remove us after reaping the benefits? 10. If you could ask an alien any question, and seek any knowledge or technology in the universe, what would you ask and what would you seek? Why are you intrested in us?
1. Why do you use the word "we" here? 2. Why do you use the word "we" here? I would like to die in my sleep, during a very nice dream - the dream ends, and that's it, no pain at all 3. Or does our existence exist only to end us? 4. Why do we express emotions which aren't real, and if most expressions are fake, why do we express our feelings at all? Life is a stage and we are merely players strutting and fretting, etc. 5. people don't hate their own babies, generally 6. long answer 7. huh? 8. would we shoot it before it could land? doubtful. 9 huh? 10.If you could ask an alien any question, and seek any knowledge or technology in the universe, what would you ask and what would you seek? Can you take me with you?
I sympathize with the feelings you currently have that prompted you to ask this emotionally charged question. But on the spectrum between your extremely depressed state and ToR's boundless optimism, I fall much closer to her end. SciForums must be passing through a vortex of synchronicity because variations and spinoffs of this topic have popped up on four or five different threads in the last few days, not all of which are obvious from the title, e.g. "National Heroes." Something has stimulated our collective unconscious to ponder this. You can find them all very easily by searching for me, since I've spoken up loudly on all of them. In summary, I look at the last fifteen thousand years of history and see uncontrovertable evidence that we are steadily becoming better people. Hatred, irresponsibility and violence are still with us, but no matter how bad they look to you with your youthful perspective, they have abated to levels that our ancestors of 100, 500, or 3,000 years ago could not have imagined. I look at biology and see that we are a pack-social species like dogs, with a hard-wired instinct to live harmoniously and cooperatively with our pack-mates for the sake of survivability of the species. I also see that our uniquely massive brains provide us with enough programmable neurons to effectively keep the preprogrammed ones in check. As we increase the size of our packs, we are able to use our sophisticated communication ability and our uniquely long nurturing period to pass on to subsequent generations the knowledge we have learned and reasoned about life in these larger packs. We are able to negotiate and redirect those instincts to feel kinship with "pack mates" whom we don't know personally, who aren't blood relatives, who look different, who speak different languages, who worship different gods... because history taught us that this has made all of us safer, healthier, more prosperous and more comfortable. I see that we're only a short step away from combining all of us into one single pack. Our conflicts have already receded almost completely from pack-versus-pack into renegade uncivilized factions of packs fighting among themselves, usually to the consternation of the pack leaders. And as some of you are doubtless tired of hearing me repeat... I see that we made the astounding leap of faith 15,000 years ago to join voluntarily in a multi-species community with the dog pack that worked our same hunting territory because we realized it was to the mutual benefit of both--at a time when we regarded the nearest pack of humans as competitors for scarce resources. I see our ability to learn to love pack mates of an entirely different species that we can barely communicate with as a sign that we will easily learn to embrace as pack mates all creatures who are Homo sapiens like us. We are complicated organisms with a complicated social structure. We will probably never completely conquer the problems you observe. But I do not believe your hopelessness is warranted because we have made steady progress against all of them. Since the day the first band of human hunters used their pointy sticks to bring down the woolly rhinoceros that the first band of dog hunters had cornered, so the families of both could lie around the fire the humans lit, guarded by the dogs' night vision and superior hearing. The babies of both species have been increasingly secure and well fed. If you want to feel better, go hug your dog and thank him for simply being there when we needed him. He has faith in us and so do I.
