Of Need

We have too many unnecessary desires.
These desires need to either be repressed, or diverted, channeled into non-destructive activities, like what we’re doing now, going on the computer, philosophizing, art, as opposed to material production/consumption.

I’ll save the definition of life for another thread.
We don’t have to die in order to cut out the excess, we just have to relax, take it easy, not work much more than we have to, enjoy the little things, whether it’s going for a walk, or reading a book, or getting something to eat.

You don’t have to lose your vital organs in order to cut those desires that you deem to be unnecessary but you do have to cut those desires, and depending on how you define life, that may mean that a part of you, an important part of you, has to die.

What if cutting off intelligence, becoming unintelligent, is more likely to preserve your vital organs?

Would you call that life?

My question is, why do you think these desires are unnecessary and why do you think others should think in the same way?

I do agree there are unnecessary motivations or motivations that must be trimmed. However, the reason why these motivations must be trimmed may not be the same as yours.

If people are not self-aware, they tend to grasp at straws to meet their needs (which remain undiscovered to them) or resign themselves to not being satisfied. Mistaken desires lead to all sorts of empty endeavors with the end result of the person still searching for relief that is not superficial/empty. I asked about the general need for spirituality based on those unmet searches. Human companionship is one need that most people fight against to their own chagrin. Why do humans fight ties with other humans by and large?

Interesting challenge.
Is it better to be dumb and alive, or die smart?
I guess it depends, on how dumb you are.
It feels good to be intelligent, and it’s usually useful, but it’s not a necessity, so long as you’re intelligent enough to take care of yourself and your family if you have one, that’s what’s most important.
There’s a lot that goes into making us who we are besides our intelligence, physically, and psychologically, there’s our memories, if we still have those, our personality, principles and so on, our emotions.
We can still be of value to both ourselves and others, both from a subjective and utilitarian standpoint, even if we’re not geniuses, even if we’re a little slow.

However, you might be better off dead than in a persistent vegetative or a nearly persistent vegetative state.
It’s not a necessity for society to keep you alive, but a luxury, in such a state you probably wouldn’t be much good to anyone, even yourself, just a burden.
In such cases I don’t think there’s anything wrong with individuals/their families making provisions to have doctors terminate their life should their cerebral cortex become severely and irrevocably damaged.

For me, this is keeping in my line with my thinking, which I will call necessitism.
If anything about value could be called objective, it’s our needs.
These are the things which come closest to being absolute, and universal.
The physical needs are most important and pertinent, but the psychological needs are important and pertinent too, and sometimes it can be tricky to distinguish a psychological need from a want, and occasionally psychological needs might precede physical ones in priority.

In the case that you presented… well you see, society has needs too, and as social animals, barring a few completely asocial and antisocial exceptions, I think it’s a psychological need to want to be of some use to society, to be admired, to make yourself useful in some way.
While in a persistent vegetative state, on life support, you may still be alive, your physical needs may still be taken care of, it’s important to look at societies needs and not just our own, as well as our own psychological needs before we enter such a dreadful state where we’re almost completely deprived of a psychology.

While you need life support to keep you alive, society doesn’t need to give you life support, and so you are a luxury from societies standpoint, like a potted plant, but much more costly.
If a useless persons life is detracting from the needs of useful people, people who’re both more fully realized, actualized as human beings, and contributing to their own needs and the needs of society, and there’s no way to improve this useless person, than this useless person ought to be terminated, because the needs of the others outweigh the needs of any single individual.
However, if you can keep a useless individual alive, without it costing society or the environment much, than I would leave it up to individuals, and the collective, to decide, it doesn’t matter all that much either way, but from societies standpoint it’s a luxury, not a necessity.
While any single individuals life may not be too costly, since we presently have an abundance of resources, thousands, millions of such burdensome individuals could be very costly to it and to nature.
I think it’s an open ended question, how important it is to take care of others?

So you could say my necessitism has an altruistic, a reciprocal altruistic component.
It’s a hierarchy of values but there’s some overlap and probably some exceptions, but I think generally, the physical needs come first, then the psychological needs, then the wants, but we have to consider societies needs and natures too, as well as those few cases where psychological needs trump physical ones.
Still, I think this needism, this putting needs first ahead of wants is almost always a good thing, and I think we could use more of it, because the way I see it, and it’s a big subject, the biggest problem with society today, is that it has totally forgotten about necessity in its rabid, reckless and maniacal pursuit of luxury, consumerism, and it’s going to be the death of us and the death of nature, in my estimation and in the estimation of many others, increasingly.

Our problem is not that we neglect our desires, that is not our problem, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Modern man tries to satisfy nearly every single superfluous desire that momentarily enters his head, and if he presently can’t, and he’s smart enough, he’ll invent some machine to fulfill it.
Advanced technology appropriated to serve our every grotesque, demented whim, it’s a sickness we have, and I think we all have it some extent, humanity is sick.
But this will all become more apparent after civilization collapses due to disease, resource depletion and nuclear warfare, that is if there’s anyone left to apprehend it, and it will happen, it is happening.

Unlike the left, for lack of a better term, or some factions of it, I see such as primarily an ethical or psychological problem, a question of values, philosophy, perspective, metaphysics, rather than an economic one, but it can be addressed from either angle.
It’s also a genetic problem, and some people may have this gene, this gene that causes people to be hypercompetative, and greedy.

I would say survival trumps just about any single psychological need, unless survival is only possible if one deprives themselves of all or almost all psychological needs.
You don’t have to do this thou, it’s not as if we need to deprive ourselves of every psychological need, for the sake of our survival, and for nature, we only have to reign some of them in, some of the time, find a balance.
There’s no balance today, the way I see it, none whatsoever, we are consuming ourselves into oblivion, and it’s only just the beginning.
Society is just going to get more and more sickly, and then it’s going to be taken over by other, more primitive societies, and/or reclaimed by nature.

We also have to consider societies needs too, and not just the needs of any single individual, as I’ve already explained, and also, what is it that’s surviving, what does it mean to be yourself, or human?
We can define it in purely genetic terms, like hey, your body is still there, or yea, you have a torso, but no limbs or head, because we’re keeping you alive on life support, but is that really you?
The more pieces we taken from a thing, the less it, it is, the more it becomes something else.
A man without a brain has become in some very important aspects, inhuman, since human is defined, and ought to be defined, as something having a brain, and so to dispose of such a thing is little different than disposing of a piece of plant matter, or an amorphous blob of cellular tissue.
I mean if we keep a dog heart alive, in a vat, is it still a dog, and does it have value to us?
It isn’t, and no it does not.
At some point, in removing vital parts of ourselves, we lose our humanity or much of it, we can no longer be called human, and the needs of humans, not amorphous/severely mutilated cellular tissue, is what matters.

So yes, needs are what’s important, especially the physical ones, in almost all cases, but we must also ask, the needs of who, or of what?
Some peoples needs are more important than others, some people may undergo such changes as to no longer warrant being called people.
Some people contribute to the needs and harmless desires of society, and some people detract.

Needs have the most value, especially physical but also psychology, but who’s needs, what’s?
I would say people, especially those who can take care of their own needs in a way that helps society take care of its, and isn’t a burden to nature, or burdens nature little, their needs are most important.
A person may produce a lot, and grow very rich, but how much value do the really have, if they’re harming nature, and fulfilling peoples frivolous desires at the expense of their needs?
Such people are more cancerous to society than people in vegetative states, and they and the people who’re addicted to their ‘goods and services’, if they can be called that.

I agree, that’s a good point.
If people are unaware of their real needs, they may be trying to fill that hole with all sorts of other things, which may only temporarily satisfy them, at best, and that’s how addiction can start.
Understanding what our real needs are, like the need to be healthy, to not feel ill all the time, or to have people around you who you care for, can relate to, and they you, may be what you really need, and realizing that, and being able to fulfill that, may help you give up whatever you’re addicted to.
Sometimes we have what we need, or most of it, and we’re just not aware, because we get stuck in this habit of always wanting more, always thinking about what we don’t have, and it’s important to break such harmful habits. Sometimes I think we can just be, and not constantly think about what we don’t have, being anxious for the future, mournful of the past, and just be peaceful and content with living and being in the present.

Intelligence is just one out of many other competences I could have used as an example.

My point is that whenever you remove an organism from its habitat and force it into an environment that is alien to it, its competences become obsolete, unable to be practiced within that new environment, which the organism then experiences as suffering, and yes, as dying.

Intelligence, of any sort, isn’t that necessary for survival. Insects have little to none of it and they are pretty much the masters of survival.

Eusocial organisms, in general, are individually weak, capable of only performing simple, highly specialized, tasks. Their power is collective . . . as a group of highly specialized organisms they are brilliant.

The function of the alpha male, of the king, of any group of termites is nothing but to . . . reproduce. A laughable concept compared to that which applies to humans where by king we mean someone who governs an entire nation whether he reproduces or not.

I suppose, then, that according to your logic, which places survival above everything else, we should strive to be . . . insects?

Magnus Anderson

That answer would depend on who you are asking.
A soldier fighting in a war or a child living in a gang or drug infested neighborhood might have a different life experience than we do.

Are you asking for one’s quality of life or the state of existing?

Like attempting to gather the oceans in a little cup.

Obviously, they are a part of what some consider to be needed in life.
Their removal is what we call “dying to self” - which is a form of death and which letting go prepares us for the Big Death.

Excesses are a compensation for what is felt to be missing. They only die when something good has come to replace them.

I wasn’t trying to say only survival matters, just that there’s a hierarchy of needs, the physical needs being almost always primary, psychological needs secondary and desires tertiary.
All of them are more/less important, just that generally speaking, the former shouldn’t be sacrificed for the latter, nor should we sacrifice all of nature, or much of it, for the sake of our desires, we should repress some of them, many of them, or find ways of satisfying them or diverting them that aren’t as harmful to our health as individuals, as a society, and to life itself.

As for the social insects, I don’t think their way of socializing is any better than ours.
Insects are only as social as they are, because all members of their colony are biological sisters, and brothers.
Human beings in a society aren’t as related to one another, or as specialized, and there’s good and bad in that, as we can still function independently as individuals when need be, and we have the benefit of adding our individuality to the collective, helping it to evolve, rather than stagnate.

Procreation has, pros, and cons, if there’s not enough resources to go around, it can be bad.
The idea is not to have as many offspring as possible, but not to exceed the environmental carrying capacity.
Also, the more offspring, the less you can give them special attention, animals that tend to have lots of offspring, tend not to care for them, and so the vast majority of them die off, sometimes they all die off.

I’m not sure if insects are more successful than mammals, or if any particular species of insect, is more successful than human beings, from a survival standpoint.
You can’t compare insects or say ants as a whole to humans, because that’s comparing an entire class or order to a single species, the correct comparison would be a species of insect, like a particular kind of ant, like a fire ant, to human beings.
Even if there’s trillions of fire ants and only billions of human beings, ants are a lot smaller, in order to determine who’s more successful from a more objective standpoint, I would compare the total weight of fire ants to human beings.
Success is fleeting thou, I wouldn’t be surprised if humans offed themselves sooner than later.

From a survival standpoint governing a whole society isn’t necessarily successful, or from an offspring standpoint, Alexander the great died young without an heir, but then some dictators have harems and hundreds of children, so it depends.
Polygamy has advantages and disadvantages too, the less wives there are to go around, the more civil unrest, and in any case, how many rich and powerful men today have harems?
From both a survival standpoint, and a happiness or health standpoint, it makes little difference, whether you’re a CEO, president/prime minister, or middle class person, even from an influence standpoint, a president isn’t responsible for all that much, and can easily be replaced, in many cases they’re just figureheads or puppets, so much is decided by the thousands of men who’re ‘under’ them, and support them, as well as legal precedents, corporations and so on.

What I"m trying to say really is just that great wealth and power, fame and fortune are totally unnecessary, yet our society worships them, as many others have.
What really matters is that you and those who you’re responsible have their needs, especially physical, but psychological too, met, and you need to be very wealthy to do this, everything else is superfluous, and can sometimes do a lot more harm to us as individuals and as a whole.
Everything has a cost, what can be done without shouldn’t be risked for what can.
I think we’d most of us might be better off if we adopted more ascetic or minimalist values.

There is a hierarchy of needs, yes, but what is not there is a single structure of needs that applies to everyone.

There is a multiplicity of traditions.

The best life, from an individual’s perspective, is that which is lived in accordance with the natural evolution of one’s tradition.

The problem of modern age is the fact that people no longer have any customs.

Every individual and culture is different, and has different needs, but every individual and culture is also the same, and has the same needs, it can be seen either way.
There’s a lot of things we have in common, and there’s some things we don’t.
No system is perfect, but a good one would have few or at least fewer exceptions to its rules.
We need to improvise, but sometimes systems are necessary, because systems take the whole, past, present and future into account, not merely the immediate.
Our traditions had a lot of flaws, but they worked well enough for centuries, now we’ve abandoned them, and replaced them with nothing in some cases, or self help, pop philosophy, psychology/psychiatry and secular right/left politics in others.
The contemporary systems we have are constantly upgrading themselves, and are somewhat atraditional, but I believe there is a foundation to them that never changes, and unfortunately for moderns that foundation has been built upon sand, it’s only a matter of time before the edifice completely collapses.

All needs are means to a desired end, all desired ends are wants. Nobody needs to live, in fact, everyone does “need” to die, as in order for life to exist, life must die. There are no needs, only wants, only desires.

Nihilistically incorrect. Life does not require death, although death obviously requires life.

Satanic lustful propaganda. One could just as easily say, “There are no wants or desires, only motions.”

The most fundamental need, often ignored yet one cannot live without for even a moment: A place to be.
… just ask the homeless.

Yeah, the material body dies, but the subtle body, the consciousness does not. Hells for some, heavens for others, and back here for most. Figure out how many times though JSS, would ya please. One life repeats, many lives repeat, blah, blah.

In the infA^6 universe, all that is ever alive, is always alive … somewhere.

There’s some differences between the physical and psychological needs, and physical and psychological desires.
I tried to explain these differences in my OP and subsequent posts.
Here’s an example -

Take the need for steak and potatoes vs the desire for a diet coke.
Let’s put aside the notion diet coke can help fat people lose weight for a moment, which I believe is largely unproven at any rate.
What they have in common is they’re both substances we like to consume, and they can be very pleasurable, but that’s where the similarities end.
One is food, and the other is at best a nonfood, and at worst, a poison, depending on what studies you’re looking at.
Food helps us survive in optimal physical and mental condition, nonfoods don’t, and poisons hinder our survival.
Nonfood can hinder our survival to, if we turn to it instead of real foods.

Now, you may not want to survive, but virtually everyone does (so long as they’re not totally miserable, and feeling there’s little-no chance of improving their condition, practically no one has ever committed suicide out of happiness), not only so they can go on enjoying life, but because life and its propagation are valuable for nearly all of us.
So both steak and potatoes on the one hand, and diet coke on the other hand are pleasurable, but the former is going to help us attain things practically everyone value, to survive, to be in good health, and when we’re in good health, we not only feel better, but we function better, and are able to acquire more of what we both need and want, both for ourselves and others we care about, and, the latter, especially if its taken to an extreme, where most of your diet consists of junk food, is going to significantly hinder all of these things.

And so, one is objectively, or as near as can be, more valuable, and very different in its nature than the other, for these reasons, because it aids us in getting other things everyone else wants, in their right mind.
One are substances we evolved side by side with, if we evolved the way mainline science says we did, and are biologically adapted to consume, the others are not, there’s major differences between them, and these differences arguably warrant different words to classify them, and we ought to think and feel very differently about them.

What is the infA^6 universe, another entertainment vehicle like #42?

All biological bodies are flawed. If you can, you make the best with what you were given by making healthier choices to ensure continued existence, physically, psychologically, and spiritually while you live out your allotted time in your material body. None of the three categories can be significantly shortchanged without eventual consequences and I mean eventual as in destined for regret.