Why do people have the desire to talk?

James

I want to expand on what you posted a little . . .

I agree and let me tell you why I agree. The desire or craving or whatever you want to call it is more or less rudimentary to the perception of hope and/or threat. When not at ease in the social group then it is very likely a degree of hope and/or threat - I know when I sometimes have a hope in mind I enter a state of anticipation which is generally not settled until the event either takes places or I know for sure it wont.

His/her desire is going to be at least slightly different because of the incentive/stimulus again pointing to more or less elementary aspects of desire or craving. In this case I present a more negative illustration in contrast to my last - that when one is perceiving a threat, his or her stimulus is reactive to the ultimatum.

Settlement then or resolution is a neutral state that is void of hope or threat - leading us to do or not to do something with the previous threat or hope in mind.

That would be my suggestive order.

I will approach each item in your bullet list with a separate post: Companionship is much the same as society. The affirmation of the want to belong is related back to what Thomas Hobbes said asserting that human desire is the fundamental motivation of all human action. Companionship then I think is for the reason that WendyD gave: As a being I need other beings to measure the worth of existence and without other beings, existence would be worthless.

I will change that to fit the word desire: As a being I desire other beings to measure the worth of existence and without other beings, existence would be worthless.

This presents a higher construct than mere survival . . .

Useful Information

Small Talk
Useful information to me would be information that has some value, this would become a complex issue from what I can determine. I get useful information from people when I engage in small talk, it can show that they are comfortable to be around me - I dare say the converse is possible by my giving small talk to show that I am comfortable around them.

By Analogy
Then there is information via analogy - just by interacting with others on their points of view I have been able to apply the received information by analogy to something else of value to me - I mean something technically unrelated. You don’t even have to be aware of the analogous connection as long as you are absorbing the information given. The neural networks themselves are able to make the analogies fit - it is only the mind that gets annoyed with UN-fitting information. It does beg the question whether annoyance is more elemental - but I do think the neurons are quite happy to keep processing(figuratively speaking) as long as they have the energy to do so.

Directly Applicable
Lastly for this post there is what we perceive as directly applicable information. On first glance this information can bring a smile to our face. When someone is helping us to fill in the gaps of our own information it is mostly positive. When we enter into a state with them of confusion it is then that our mind must work harder to make the connections. Directly applicable information can become boring to some people - as peculiar as it sounds, I think it boils down to resolution leveling out the mind/body so therefore we seek more stimulus.

All three of the examples I have provided here come with their own pros and cons but I will leave that up to the reader to discern. Useful information is by no means limited to these three examples for example, information that comforts outside of small talk can be by analogy or directly applicable and no doubt something not tied up in these three examples.

“As a being, I desire other beings to measure the worth of existence and without other beings, existence would be worthless.”

Logical Independence
To know yourself, you’ll find that almost all of the knowing was invention, you have a silent mind, a ghost town of the present wherein no world exists at all. Something inside tells us to seek independence. Logic dictates you ought to reason with complete independence, not relying on communication you’ve ever heard or read, meditating and contemplating, becoming familiar with the silent mind.

The following might seem recognizable to some:

With other people we can see the light;
by myself I can only see the dark.

With other people we can add purpose;
by my self I have none.

With other people I can find answers;
I alone can find none.

Society is an ocean;
I am but a wave.

To get answers we must ask questions - the reason why we ask questions is because we do not know the answers. When we need the right answers we must ask the right questions - but if no one is around then whom do we address the question to? I would say our-self.

[b]
When being enters the wild with no language - universe provides for being patterns - the silent language is at work . . .

. . . answers can still come from from within by virtue of being’s submersion . . .[/b]
Now would you say this(getting answers from our-self) only works when we have already experienced interaction with something or someone else?

Ego Support

Semi jokingly . . .

I have something against the word ego, however I will make a serious attempt at this. I am not a big proponent of consciously feeding ones own ego for many different reasons I will not go into here . . . I am also someone who likes to point out that when it comes to the ego we should proceed with caution.

Synonyms for ego: self-esteem, self-importance, self-worth, self-respect, self-conceit, self-image, self-confidence; amour propre

I find some affinity with the the conscious mind, based on perception of the environment from birth onward: responsible for modifying the antisocial instincts of the id and itself modified by the conscience (superego) - but again I think there are possibly many better ways to understand what we are than the rotting corpse of Sigmund Freud’s primitive model.

Psychoanalysis: the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity.

Philosophy: (in metaphysics) a conscious thinking subject.

I have found that from more sophisticated models more elegance can be found - funny that - it turns out that the convoluted nature we have produced can be simplified drastically. Patterns “biatches” are proving far superior to many if not all other models prior to the year 2000.

:laughing:

Seriously though . . .

This is an important topic . . . B U T . . . how we go about talking and thinking about it . . .

. . . has led to all sorts of flame-wars and the flamers are too numerous to count.

The desire to talk . . .

“Beyond theorizing, there are certainly various social passions and desires at play in most of our communications. My own idea on this would be: through talk or writ people are able to produce or maintain their self. And within a society obsessed with the notion – and upkeep – of a personal self and the freedoms related to that self, one needs to keep propagating it: self survival! If needed, indeed even through silly, void conversations. Including the act of tuning into those of others (like with radio or television). Even writing on a forum using philosophical topics will have that element of identity. At least I’m quite aware of producing not only words or ideas but also a self-concept by doing so.”

Just don’t ask me what the moral of the story is . . . ego(I) am lost . . .

:laughing:

Yearning For a Life

I do believe in this context we are talking about feeling rather wholesome. This desire to feel wholesome is built into us and is a part of our survival. We take take wholesome to mean two things here:

  1. characterized by moral well-being
  2. suggestive of good health and physical well-being

Moral well-being is a part of who we are and it seems adjustable to the situation we are involved in - id est morals differ from place to place. Social acceptance through our morals reinforces the self-concept and leads to good mental health overall. Whether this version of good mental health is actually morally sound is dependent on what the reader deems to be morally sound but I would suggest a threshold for morally sound which is built into us at some point - for instance not wanting to kill a member of the tribe.

We are also talking about fitting in and feeling like a part of our social group. To reiterate:

“As a being, I desire other beings to measure the worth of existence and without other beings, existence would be worthless.”

We are constantly measuring our moral well-being against that of others and seek approval for it. When one receives approval for her/his moral well-being then it is suggestive of good mental health for the individual in question and likely leads to a level of physical well-being for the said individual.

The individual feels like he/she fits nice and neatly into this life that he/she yearns for or of course when things go wrong then not.

Obviously I only present a facet of what it means to yearn for a life - I also am only presenting a POV here but hopefully in some way it brings us closer to understanding why we have the desire to communicate/talk/interact.

Social Influence

Social Influence cuts both ways for we all seek to influence each other - I you and you me.

When the heart is good then we seek to influence each other in good ways and when the heart is bad then we seek to influence each other in bad ways. Social Influence is more about the health of the group as a whole. Social Influence is variable and can become corrupt. The motivations of each individual in the group either enhance or diminish the value of the overall Social Influence inside the group.

The desire to talk then is partly based on our motivations to influence each other - to either add value or detract it.

:-k

Sense of Social Acceptance

For some people it might seem strange that we have a sense for social acceptance - we have at least two actually - one to sense whether we feel accepted and another to know whether others are accepted. This sense is to monitor the perceived health of the group.

I think Wikipedia says it pretty well: “Acceptance in human psychology is a person’s assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it or protest it. The concept is close in meaning to acquiescence, derived from the Latin acquiēscere (to find rest in).”

Further: “Social acceptance affects people of all sorts and includes children, teenagers, and adults. Social acceptance could be defined as the fact that most people, in order to fit in with others, attempt to look and act like them. Or sometimes it is the ability to accept or to tolerate differences and diversity in other people or groups of people.”

And lastly: “Self-acceptance is being happy with one’s current self. It is an agreement with oneself to appreciate, validate, accept, and support the self as it is at this moment. People have trouble accepting themselves because of a lack of motivation. Some have the misconception that if someone is happy with themselves, they would not change anything about themselves. This is not true; individuals don’t have to be unhappy with themselves to know and actively change things they don’t like.”

I would suggest that self-acceptance is partially determined through social acceptance. When removing the social noise to “find ourselves” we are comparing ourselves to others in an attempt to validate our self-concept - we desire to talk to others and we often perform self-talk.

As a pathway to Enlightenment - Cogito ergo sum

We talk, read, write and listen as as means to achieve enlightenment - because we desire to be enlightened. Is this true?

I have no intention of pushing any particular agenda here and first I would like to look at ways enlightenment is viewed.

Enlightenment simply put is the action of enlightening or the state of being enlightened.

Another way to view enlightenment is as the action or state of attaining or having attained spiritual knowledge or insight, in particular (in Buddhism) that awareness which frees a person from the cycle of rebirth.

The Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent figures included Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.

Thank you google for your definitions.

:smiley:

So what exactly are we talking about here? I believe we are talking about a few things that have become confused over time and suffers from overproduced interpretations. I say this because of my experience arguing with people on such things as the real meaning of the yin and yang, Buddhist concepts as well as WE Westerners who value our individualism so highly as to become condescending to our fellow man - but I have seen this having of or showing an attitude of patronizing superiority evident in modern day interpretations of Eastern thought too.

However I do believe we desire to talk partially because we desire to be enlightened.

I personally have lost interest in any form of enlightenment - it has become somewhat boring to argue for me - I am certain that enlightenment is not supposed to be so bothersome and tiresome but rather free us of our bondage - yet so many people spend the better part of their lives arguing, fighting and acting like imbeciles in the name of enlightenment - so certain that their own view is the only view.

My suggestion is that most have trapped themselves rather than freed themselves of any burden . . .

. . . disparaging opinions abound . . .

“Douglas Adams jokingly theorized that if human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains would start working. There’s some truth in that since talking could very well, just by the overproduction of signifiers, be able to drown out the actual meaning or thought connected to the words. This would take one into the broader social theory that our society is overproducing reality and as such, is losing reality at the same pace. Signifier production (production of pure connection) here seen as part of the broader reality construction.”

To reiterate:

With other people we can see the light;
by myself I can only see the dark.

With other people we can add purpose;
by my self I have none.

With other people I can find answers;
I alone can find none.

Society is an ocean;
I am but a wave.

As I stated previously it is quite likely that the real mission is: how to work out why this needs to be the case. We seek to define for ourselves an identity - we separate ourselves whether in isolation or in connection. We confine ourselves to our own ideals and feel threatened or enlightened when these ideals come into question - we then desire to talk, argue and agree.

I in turn look forward to more interaction - I am never in a rush - agreed newness takes time to cover.

To understand ultimate truth one need only sit in reality undisturbed by delusion, and there the nature of reality is present. Concept-clinging works mostly as a hindrance to insight. Take it away for even a few moments, a silent mind, and you’ll immediately realize that there’s existence. Seriously, take a look around you, check the room, where is non-existence besides as shallow concept? What you know, the only thing anyone knows, is existence.

WendyDarling; Thank you for your insight and I hope you don’t mind the slight change:

“As a being, I desire other beings to measure the worth of existence and without other beings, existence would be worthless.”

:romance-grouphug:

I Speak, Therefore I Am - maybe?

:laughing:

And then there is that looming question;
[list]Why do you desire to talk about why people desire to talk?[/list:u]
:sunglasses:

James

It seemed like a good topic at the time - I did not really have any desire to talk.

I was curious as to why others did.

:laughing:

Looming question, James? Perhaps not so looming. :evilfun:

Learning about WHY someone desires to talk is another way of getting to know them at their core, their center.
Some people desire or enjoy talking because they love to share, it is important to them.
For some people it is about ridding their selves of suppressed emotions and thoughts which can be detrimental to their physical and mental health…getting rid of those cobwebs in a manner of speaking.

If someone says to you: "James, if I can’t talk, if I can’t express myself, if I can’t in some ways reveal myself to you, I will close myself off. I will feel very much alone, like an island of sorts.
People desire to talk and having someone to talk with, open up to, is like a catharsis ~~ in the same way that laughing or crying or running is.
Why do you think there is such a need for people like psychologists and psychiatrists, especially the really good ones, who basically will do most of the listening and allow the other to do most of the speaking, ranting and raving, getting out the pain and confusion, et cetera?

Of course, I’m just responding to your question and I very much realize that there is nothing in here that you don’t already know or understand, James.

A few thoughts come to mind. Unless I am losing my mind - that is also a possibility.

Why would I lose my desire to talk?

I wonder how much we don’t know about about the compulsion to talk.

:-k

encode_decode

Well, if you are losing your mind, then it is a good thing that you recognize the possibility and you can do something about it.
I’m kidding of course ~~but there is truth in that,
But would someone who is losing their mind be aware of that?

But why, pray tell, do you see that as a possibility? Are your little bots giving you a hard time? hehehehehe

Is that a rhetorical question?

I may be wrong here but that might depend on the individual him/her -self. I think that some of us at the moment when we are feeling compelled to talk, or are aware of that compulsion within ourselves, and are experiencing it through talk, can take a step back and realize where they are coming from, what it is which is triggering it, what fear, et cetera, and can bring it to a slow halt.

But to further answer your question, probably LOADS. :evilfun:
There is so very much within us which we are not aware of - what makes us tick. We and our minds are like deep space in a sense, a final frontier the end of which we may never understand.
Okay, that’s enough :blush:

:-k

[/quote]

Arcturus Descending

You have blown me away already.

:laughing:

Ah good - I was getting scared.

As for the rest - well - I will respond - you can bet on that . . .

=D>

Yes.

I learnt about a drink called Satans koolaid today.

8-[

As a social recluse I have no desire to influence anyone. I am more an observer of society
than a participant and this suits me just fine. As being detached allows for peace of mind

surreptitious57

So because you have no desire to influence anyone your influence becomes unintentional. Do you think anything might be affected by your observation?
Still I see the sense in your detachment - I am just wondering how many different forms of detachment I can come up with.

Arcturus Descending

Now now . . . you know me better than that.

If it was rhetorical then I would have indicated my intention clearly for it to be rhetorical.

:laughing:

Seriously though: why do you think it would be the case? That I lost my desire to talk not the whole rhetorical intentional indication thingy . . .
. . . or even the know me better than that thingy . . . just messing with ya.

Seriously though: why do you think?

:-k

The words I write here and else where may influence others but like you say that is purely unintentional. As I have already
said I am not here to change minds and make others think like me. I simply write what I think and leave it up to them how
they want to interpret it. Agree or disagree it makes no difference to me. I have no control over other minds only my own