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.
A life of sheer hedonism is fleeting, where as a life of substantive hedonism, enjoying things that improve our health and the health of others, could potentially go on forever, living for something that could potentially go on forever, or at least last a lot longer, with few-no repercussions, is objectively better than living for something fleeting, because, it’s objective, because, it exists, and can go on existing, where as the other is temporal, which is close to not existing at all.
Now I’m not saying we can or even should be 100% objective in our tastes or preferences, but it’s something to think about, we should at least be weary of the distinction.
In what sense does life require death?
James is right when he says death obviously requires life, nonliving things can’t die.
I can think of a couple of things you might be referring to.
The old need to die to make way for the new, for the next generation.
The prospect of death and nonlife animates life, gives it meaning, purpose and direction, to avert the former, death, and to make use of the latter, nonlife, to have something to consume, room to grow and propagate itself.
Or to put it more succinctly, nonlife and death makes life live.
Interesting things to ponder, I’ll get back to you on them shortly.
If everything was alive, would we even have the words/concepts life/nonlife?
Are they mutually dependent?
Do things or qualities exist now we have no words for, and cannot think, because they don’t have an opposite?
I’m not sure if consciousness survives death, I tend to think that it does not.
As the brain shrivels up and dies, the mind appears to die with it, like when people get alzheimers or dementia, and that’s just one example of how brain and consciousness appear to be totally intertwined, to be the same thing, merely viewed from different vantage points.
There are near death experiences, but are they just the dreams of the dying?
But then are the dreams of the living a sort of reality, is life itself a dream?
I think he means infinite universe.
If we live in an infinite universe, especially either an infinitely varied one, or one that repeats things across infinite and eternal space and time that’re practically the same as our point in space and time, than while we may die, something exactly like us, or very similar, might be born elsewhere, there could be trillions upon trillions of versions of you and I, an endless number.
I’m not sure if the universe is infinite myself, while I think it can be fun to speculate on such things, I don’t think they’re very practical, nor do I think we can have a definite answer to such questions.
The material organ of the brain is a simple relay station for the incorporeal mind/consciousness. The brain coordinates the sensory body to the subtle body.
Yea, agreed, and that’s one of, if not the major difference between needs and healthy desires, and unhealthy desires, the former two tend to have prosequences, the latter one consequences, the former two are more sustainable, the latter one, unsustainable, especially when taken to an extreme/long term.
It’s important to keep that in mind, it doesn’t mean we cannot or even should not ever indulge in meaningless pleasures from time to time.
That may be true, thou I’ve yet to see any hard evidence for it.
There are many reports of ghosts, past life and near death experiences and so on, I guess that’s a kind of soft evidence that may be sufficient for some to believe.
I think it’s an interesting subject.
“There are more things in heaven and earth…”
Some of the New Age spiritualists are way ahead of science. http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/index.php A site that covers just about everything that science doesn’t care to understand.
Science is the study of observable phenomena so any thing outside of this is beyond its remit but the things that supposedly are may simply
be phenomena for which there is currently no scientific explanation. Such as so the called paranormal or supernatural. However some such
phenomena can be scientifically tested. Such as the claims of psychics for example who employ cold calling that is a technique anyone can
use. And so there is nothing paranormal or supernatural about it at all
There is nothing constant in the universe aside from change itself. Once something changes so much that it is no longer itself, it can be said to die. Everything dies. Stars.
The fragility of individual life is apparent and a requirement based on the condition for life to exist as we know it. To assume life can be immortal is religion. I have no desire to entertain religious thoughts.
Firstly, I’m agnostic, but, or should I say and?
And, I’m skeptical of science, I think it’s rational to be, and irrational or religious not to be.
Secondly, even if what they say about stars dying is true, doesn’t mean life is going to die.
For every star that dies, another is born, likewise, for every individual life that dies, another is born.
No matter how much data you think they’ve sifted through and interpreted correctly, they can’t possibly know what’s going to happen to the cosmos nor life itself billions of years from now with certainty, at best they can make an educated guess and at worst, a wild one.
I’m not assuming the cosmos and life will go on forever, I’m not assuming humanity or some things like it will go on forever, but it’s possible, unless we all think like you, that is, it’s possible.
Thanks, I’m going to investigate these matters further on this forum, I’ll probably join it as Gloominary.