Chaos amidst serinity

[BluTGI]

In man are two forces, and they are like the avatars of vishnu. The destroyer and the Builder. Why Does man have this chaotic half that wants to destroy or watch things destroy. Everyone in them has a form of want for destruction. It could be small as watching a explosion on a tv serial. Or a medium want with watching a explosion in person at some fiestival. Or a Imense desire to actually do the detonating.


So why does man strive for his and other's destruction. Were it not for our instinct to survive we would all be dead.

[Brad]

Your missing the point of Vishnu. In order to create, one must destroy (change).

[BluTGI]

I understood vishnu, A question to you since you responded would be does the Creation = the destruction? In their religion it does. But outside of religion or that idealism Does man's creativity = man's desire for blood?

But my question is still valid even if it was not so well punctuated now that i look at it.

Refer to A muslim's new post. Revelations says the streets will be filled with blood and death. And it seems with every conflict the blood level gets higher and higher.

[Polemarchus]

BluTGI,
I don't know the first thing about Vishnu, but your post reminded me of a passage by Rebecca West that I once jotted into my journal. It's said to have come from her book, Black Lamb & Grey Falcon:

"Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties and die in peace; in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad...and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations."

Brad wrote:

Your missing the point of Vishnu. In order to create, one must destroy (change).

The verb "destroy" not atypically, has several meanings. One meaning is "change," but another meaning implies "violent change." Creation requires change, as do all acts by men. But creation doesn't imply violent change. For example:

An acorn grows quite peacefully into a mighty oak.
No act of destruction is required to bring a child into this world.
A poet does not destroy words in order to create poetry.

Brad, do you think it was correct of Vishnu to say that creation requires destruction?

Michael

[BluTGI]

To answer for brad Yes that is what the idea is bassed on. To create one must destroy. Just as to reap one must sow(soe? So?)

So many wars in the past 300 years. Yet so much creation Yet we seem to be slowing. we are not creating as much as we used to infact i doubt we are even creating half as much as before. Partly due in fact that most of today's jobs are based on managing resources not using them. Of course the World as we see it today could be described by later generations as a extention from WW2 Its like we are still dealing with it even today as the generation that went through it disapears.

Does this mean to keep going with creativity we should start the slaughter again?

"come on you can do it only 5000 more dead civilians and we are on mars."

[Polemarchus]

BluTGI wrote:

we are not creating as much as we used to infact i doubt we are even creating half as much as before.

Gosh, I couldn't disagree more with this assertion. We are today far more creative than ever were our hunter-gatherer or our agricultural ancestors. Vastly better educated people working with vastly improved tools almost can't help but be more creative than were our ancestors, who spent the bulk of their lives chasing animal herds or carrying muck to the fields.

"More than 80% of the scientists who have ever lived are alive today."
Explaining the Universe, John Charap, Princeton University, 2001

"The number of scientific papers published annually has been doubling every 10-15 years for the last two centuries [Price]. This is also true of mathematics alone. In 1870 there were only about 840 papers published in mathematics. Today, about 50,000 papers are published annually...we come to the conclusion that about 1,000,000 mathematical papers have ever been published. What is much more surprising to most people is that almost half of them have been published in the last 10 years."
Andrew Odlyzko, AT&T Bell Laboratories, 1994

To create one must destroy. Just as to reap one must sow.

I don't understand your metaphor BlutTGI. Seed has to be planted before a crop is produced. An application of your analogy suggests that one must create in order to destroy. But isn't this exactly the opposite of what you are saying?

Does this mean to keep going with creativity we should start the slaughter again? "come on you can do it only 5000 more dead civilians and we are on mars."

I think I understand you to to be saying that war fuels our creativity, though your sarcasm leads me to think that you don't approve. If that's so, then at least we have a minor point of agreement. I won't deny that war often acts to spur technological creativity. I would further strongly agree that no war has been worth such improvements. I'm thinking now of Henry Moseley, the brilliant British physicist who was killed in WW1 at the age of 28. I wonder how many Einstein's and Feynman's ended up as boys with a bullet through their brow?

Applied science is a tool that can be used to cure disease or make nuclear weapons. If we suddenly lost our incentive to make weapons we would simply have more resources with which to cure disease. War is both a horror and a horrible waste. Humans will make their greatest stride forward when they decide to abandon war altogether.

Michael

[BluTGI]

But isn't this exactly the opposite of what you are saying?

its a cycle. a mobius circle. To destroy you have to create something, to create something, something must be destroyed.

Compare after industrialization revolution to pre Industrial revolution. and you will see what im talking about. A majority of the population does not create. Infact the creators are a minority. to a increasing majority of consumers.

Honestly If we get in another world war We get 2x what we got out of WW2 Plus we would put the WW3 end of world rumor to bed. Yet 100s and 1000s will die at a time.

[Brad]

It's difficult for me to think through the distinction between change and violent change. Obviously, I can see the difference between a seed growing into a tree and the Holocaust, but from a certain perspective, Vishnu is a god after all, it is all violent change.

With that said, I agree with Polemarcus. Change and creation are all around us. We just have to look. What's puzzling then is that so many don't see it. Why? Is there so much change that we consider change itself to be a form of the same? Do we want it to slow down or speed up?

Much to discuss here.