I’m looking at it from a continuous temporal sense, as a continuous process. The word strong is not a good term because it does not apply to all situations equally. I could could come up with many examples where the word strong would not apply, especially if example also involves the use of technology. (Maybe capable is a more appropriate word here).
Why did man develop tools and technology, the same one that he uses to achieve goals, like stopping an asteroid in your example? Was it not because he is weak? And I’m speaking on a more fundamental level here. And does technology, then, make a man strong because he can do more things? No, I say nothing has changed in any fundamental way. If anything, I would say that a man, unawares, is becoming weaker as he’s becoming even more dependent on his technology (while thinking he’s stronger).
It was a follow up open question. My view is that it was life’s “incapability” (or weakness if you will) to keep up with the entropy that forced it into sexual reproduction. Death of all individual life forms is another evidence of this. As a process, life struggles to keep up, on genetic, or molecular level, and has to continuously “update” itself. In that sense, life is not some willfull independent force, standing on its own, as some may perceive it, but quite dependent reactionary phenomenon.
I wouldn’t even say it seeks, but reacts.
Would life exist if there was no entropy?
Could you agree that if it causes good, then it wasn’t evil?
In the same sense (although merely semantics), if it causes strength, it wasn’t a weakness.
Why didn’t the Buddhists develop technology? They perceived no need for it. Their capabilities and success was their weakness. Those who were incapable and suffering developed technology to overcome not merely their suffering, but a great deal more.
If not for the “weaknesses” in the European peoples, their current strengths would never have developed. So were they really weaknesses or deceptive strengths? If you were in a position to change their abilities, would have them be like the Buddhists or more incapable such that they developed?
Over-mothering denies a child the ability to develop by providing for too much success (it also creates spoiled whiners). The strength of having a protector mother can be a more serious weakness (the same with governments).
And if there was no entropy, the entire universe wouldn’t exist. Entropy is required for stability, harmony, and anentropy. There must be something to motivate and/or pursue.
Entropy increases over time until a system can no longer perform any more work as there is no more available energy to do
so. When the Universe reaches maximum entropy heat death shall occur. And one can think of biological entropy in humans
and animals increasing over time until they can no longer perform any more work and so that is the point at which they die
That part is just a fairy tale. The universe can never run out of energy.
I wouldn’t call that entropy as much as over-developing complexity. The animal body uses up its resources in its attempt to find anentropic harmony after which it can no longer reconfigure or defend itself against ambient entropic forces. Animals are overcome by their environment. Through offspring, they “try, try again”.
He developed tools and technology in order to achieve his goals e.g. to prevent undesirable consequences, such as death, from taking place. He developed them because he was capable and not because he was incapable. If man had been incapable he wouldn’t have developed tools and technology, and so, he wouldn’t have attained his goals.
It is often said that man invented gun because he couldn’t fight with his own body. And this might be true. What is certainly true is that people who are physically weak can benefit immensely from such an invention. However, none of that alters the fact that technological inventions are a sign of capability.
If you create a monster and that monster devours you is that a sign of capability or a sign of incapability? It is both, right? The act of creating a living monster demonstrates an extraordinary ability. The unwanted consequence, however, demonstrates a lack of predictive ability. You didn’t predict how dangerous would be to create a living monster, so you didn’t take any precautionary measures.
My point is that goals can be subordinated to any kind of higher goal we can think of. You are insisting that goals must serve to avoid a state of weakness. Whatever an organism does it does it in order to avoid weakness. My point is that an organism can do things for any reason at all. It does not have to pursue strength. It can pursue weakness, for example. Your organisms want to avoid weakness. I tell you, there can be, and there are, organisms that want to avoid strength.
My point goes further than that. My point is that goals do not have to be subordinated to some higher goal. Some actions that we perform we perform for their own sake. By asking “why does one have to make goals in the first place?” you are insisting that every goal must be subordinated to some other goal. That’s not true. That’s merely a human ideal, i.e. something that humans want, not reality itself.
Continuity, in general, is something that humans want. Reality isn’t necessarily continuous/repetitive.
“Where does the light go when you turn the switch off?” a child asks.
How do you answer?
Can you also not say that what we call good is just a lesser of the two evils?
Buddhists are rebelling against their own nature. That’s why you see Buddhist monks starve themselves to death, literally, and give it a spiritual spin. In the end, did they change nature? No, they only re-labeled it. Starving to death in an attempt to prove some supernatural point is like throwing an extreme form of existential tantrum.
He did it because he had to and had an opportunity to do so, not because he wanted to.
And I can also say that the weapon was invented because there was a need for it. If there was no need, we would not have invented it. Why would we? Just because we could? I don’t think so. Same applies to other inventions like like antibiotics, cooking, domestication of animals/plants, etc.
I don’t disagree with these situations, I’m just saying that it does not change a more fundamental reality of things. The danger in saying something to the effect that anyone can do anything he wants is that if that person has a large surplus of energy available (several-lifetimes-worth) he will come to believe that such is the nature of reality itself (such as Fixed’ notion that life IS joy).
In that situation I would say, the light is still there, but goes to sleep. And yes, reality does go on, but due to excess energies, you might just not be aware of it on that level anymore. For instance, have we really eliminated infectious diseases with antibiotics and vaccinations? The disease causing organisms are still there, still evolving, and some are even re-emerging again as a threat. It’s just that most people tend to have out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality where if something does not directly affects them for the time being it automatically does not exist.
I agree that they have the same goal in the sense that they both want money. However, although they both want money they want money for different reasons. In other words, the goal they share (i.e. money) is not subordinated to the same goal.
Criminals in general only have short-term goals. They don’t have long-term goals. Think of a man who wants to acquire enough money so that he can buy himself drugs. He does not care about anything else. He does not think about the consequences. He does not care that he’s going to die. All he wants to do is have a little fun before he dies.
If, on the other hand, you respect other people because you understand that living on your own won’t help you satiate your needs, which are numerous, then stealing from others is not an option.
You don’t have to be conscious of your goals. You can know that a choice is wrong (i.e. that it does not help you get closer to your goal) without being able to explain why it’s wrong (i.e. without knowing where you want to go.) It takes a degree of self-consciousness to understand where you want to go.
I agree that goals are “deciphered” from one’s actions. And I agree that this isn’t always an easy task.
