Most people are ignorant of the underlying functions of biology. For example: many people think that love is a thing in of itself or that it is some transcendental reality ( Usually mystics subscribe to the latter ). But, in reality, love is a ploy of biology - a numbing agent to keep the organism hooked in the game of reproduction. So when people think that they, ultimately, act in the name of love, they are incorrect for reasons prior mentioned.
Philosophy - the love of wisdom. It should, actually, be called " The love of power". The naive philosopher ( like the mystic who erroneously thinks he acts, ultimately, out of love ) is wrong to think that he pursues wisdom for the sake of wisdom alone; the philosopher, ultimately, pursues philosophy because it is a means of increasing his power ( " Knowledge is power " ), thus giving him an evolutionary advantage over his competitors. Most philosophers are probably unaware of this ( ironically ), but it still remains true; the organism doesn’t need to be aware of underlining biological complexities in order to function.
Some philosophers can become plagued with an insatiable lust of acquiring more knowledge (cough POWER cough) akin to a steroid junky of a weightlifter that becomes obsessed with acquiring physical power. Of course, not all philosophers are as prior described ( Intellectual junkies ), but fundamentally, the weight-lifter and the philosopher are operating on the same playing field: Darwinian evolution. The philosopher does not transcend base biological realities with his supposed " love of wisdom". The naive philosopher often sticks his nose up in the air to the hedonists - to the mundane, but fundamentally his " love of wisdom" is a base, biological ploy to assist in his navigation and domination of the mundane, the world. Philosophy is just something be used for carnal reasons. The philosopher acts, ultimately, on the same lowly and carnal playing field as the materialistic-hedonist; both strive for the same biological ends and both are ignorant or in denial of the underlying complexities.
You are making evolution teleological. That Everything we are is for - procreation, getting Power so we can procreate, etc. But within evolutionary theory traits and behaviors and proclivities can arise randomly and need only have not damaged the species such that it disappeared. Mutations and selection could lead via chance and circumstance to traits that are neutral or have nothing to do with procreation or Power being passed on. So it need not at all be the case that REALLY love is only about procreation nor that love of wisdom is really only about Power or about Power at all. Period. There is surplus in evolution. That one can love wisdom because one want Power, sure that is possible. Though you can notice that, and even the person themselves can. But, in any case, it need not be the only reason or the reason that some individual has that love.
Guys, evolution is not like you understand it. Things like love are not about preservation of genes. That is like saying music is about preserving genes. Why do we have a sense for music? How did that “evolve” over millions of years, slowly, and naturally selected? Why aren’t more plants poisonous? Why don’t creatures live longer life spans as history and prehistory progressed?
That’s just a little bit of “argument”. You could find some more if you are good at google searching.
Healthy and intelligent children are the product of their parent’s cellular intelligence. And many other things. It’s not random.
If you are reducing philosophy to lesser meanings, that is also crap. We are not supposed to be reducing higher meanings to lesser meanings.
Moreno speaks truth. Moreno is one of the more evenhanded, intelligent and levelheaded individuals here, don’t let his modest, unassuming nature fool you.
It’s important to remember evolution doesn’t necessarily give rise to the best traits for survival, just any old trait as long as it survives. Mutations are random. Sometimes organisms may evolve some largely detrimental (for survival, that is) or neutral traits along with some beneficial ones, but they’ll end up surviving anyway, because the beneficial will outweigh the detrimental. There’s no such thing as beneficial, neutral or detrimental in the absolute sense of those words, rather, there’s relatively (relative to an environment) better and worse traits. This explains why some creatures have counterproductive traits. Mutations are largely Darwinian, random (that is to say unintelligent/unresponsive, and far too complex for sapiens to make predictions about, not literally random, little or nothing’s random in strictest sense of the word, virtually everything’s deterministic), not Lamarckian, it’s natural selection which tends to more/less predictably weed out the negative traits, but it doesn’t do a perfect job, there’s no perfection in nature, so creatures end up having all kinds of traits, like homosexual or pedophilic traits, or hair, finger and toenails that grow indefinitely (in the case of sapiens), traits that don’t benefit the organism in any way shape or form, or do little to benefit the organism, that are nonetheless able to parasitize and pass themselves down from generation to generation, because of the positive traits they’re accompanied by. So just because you have a trait, doesn’t mean it’s beneficial, or rooted in survival, it may be largely neutral, or even detrimental. Some of our penchant for philosophizing could be one of these largely neutral or detrimental traits, and it could be largely disconnected from our more primal urges.
It could be the case that everything you’ve said is true. Let’s say that it is. It could also be the case that everything you’ve said is readily apparent, just by looking at the world. If you want, we can assume that’s true as well. The problem is that there’s nothing in what you wrote that gives anyone else a reason to agree with you. It’s just a bunch of declarative sentences, stacked on top of each other, and none of them support or reinforce each other in any other way than repetition. If somebody was just making a bunch of shit up, off the top of their head, and then writing it down, it would have the same structure as what you wrote, and would be about as compelling just considering both on their own merits.
Suppose someone comes up to you and says, “fool, you’re wrong”. How would you show him you’re right? By beating him over the head with your caveman club, because it’s all will to power anyways? —And afterwards you could drag your knuckles back to your fucking chicken wings? No, man. In philosophy you give reasons why you think what you do. You give people some reason to think you’ve latched onto the truth, to agree—something about the world. If you thought that what you were saying was apparent just by looking at the world, then you wouldn’t have fucking said it, would you? Why would you have?
According to you the philosopher pursues knowledge because it’s really just power, and that shit is all will to power anyways. Yo, greaat… Give me something more than the “knowledge is power” cliche that you saw on an ad for a technical skills college. Explain to me why the quintessential philosopher, Socrates, was a fucking bum—a poor, wandering, penniless bum who deserted his familial obligations just to fucking chat in the streets and then rightly be put to death for it. Didn’t one of them live in a fucking barrel in the street? Explain to me why thousands of people, these days, with hardcore analytical skills, who could make a fucking killing by fucking people over in law, waste their time in phD programs studying fucking G.E. Moore to write a paper that they know nobody will ever fucking read?
There have always been 2 forms of Philosophy, the Philosopher seeking power for gain, and the Philosopher seeking gain through persuasion. One loves the feeling of power through the gain of intelligent information and the other the emotion that causes them to demonstrate to the other Philosopher how destructive they are in their self gratification process. They have a need for love and care and therefore demonstrate this emotion to themselves as they strove to defend humanity against personal abuses.
Therefore Philosophy caused power mongering and many bad mistakes to be made, causing other Philosophers to reason through loving persuasion by demonstrating conflicting information. These Philosophers sought the love of humanity, the need to be respected, cared for and nurtured. Therefore when they noticed that humanity were being attacked by the systems that the power mongering Philosophers were applying, they fought them with their own wisdom. Therefore they acquired their wisdom for the purpose of teaching humanity the truth to the power mongers reasoning and activity…hence they were murdered because of it…the very reason that Philosophy belonged to 2 very different forms of thought processes.
Hence those who were murdered in their loving pursuit of persuading humanity to follow the virtuous spiritual paths became murderers themselves, trying to defend humanities rights and their own rights to live and learn/teach the love and caring of the spirit.
The love in biology is purely a biological purpose, the need to protect the young for survival of the species.
The love that can be developed belongs to the spirit from which we evolved. Therefore we learnt through many processes over time what love actually implies and therefore taught the reasons involving the morality of the spirit, for the purpose of applying love and care for a community that supported the best life it deserved to gain.
The Philosophers who have always sought their own carnal delight from applying hedonistic applications are always the reason why community life is destroyed because they do not believe that everyone deserves to live in a harmonious applied system of equal recognition and learnt to demean others for the purpose of self control. These Philosophers became the Philosophers who applied the destructive techniques in Sciences that caused previous evolution of humanity to be destroyed (as per archaeological evidence).
Therefore review of human life through archaeology can provide the evidence that when communal living allows for hedonistic behavior it will always be destroyed only because the hedonist believes in the control system and does not allow for self evolution, the only true purpose of the genealogy itself.
[quote=“Dan~”]
Healthy and intelligent children are the product of their parent’s cellular intelligence. And many other things. It’s not random.(quote)
This statement proves incorrect, since when do cells produce intelligence?
Organic life is teleological; there is a universal striving in organic life to resist entropy via passing on one’s genetic material. All organic life is, ultimately, centered around that. This is Darwinian Evolution 101. Remember, we are animals too. We are hardwired for the same base and carnal shit, essentially, as all other animals. We don’t evolve traits if they don’t assist in one way or another with survival. If they become useless in time, then eventually they will fade away.
The human capacity to enjoy music is for evolutionary reasons too; it relieves stress, inspires creativity, can make warriors brave for war, etc, etc. All these things assist in survival. Philosophy is the same; knowledge is a tool for survival. We didn’t evolve the capacity for deep thought for some sublime appreciation of wisdom in of itself - We evolved the capacity for philosophical thought because it increases our chances of dominating the environment, thus surviving.
I know this truth may offend some of you, but get over it. You sound like little girls with your pouting and passive-agressive BS.
But new, largely neutral or useless mutations are always arising. Furthermore, useless is contextual, forever changing. It’s degrees, not absolutes. It doesn’t necessarily pay, from an evolutionary standpoint, to have an organism single-mindedly focused on its own survival. I tend to agree with you, the vast majority of our traits are relatively rooted in survival, and technical philosophy has something or other to do with it, but ultimately, it may be largely detrimental, which may be why so many philosophers died childless.
But evolution is not. So the traits we get are not necessarily about Power or procreation. A non-teleological process has created organisms that are teleological, yes. But the traits that get passed are not FOR something. They survive as long as they do not make survival unlikely. So they need not directly contribute to survival or Power or procreation.
Actually no, you’re wrong.
I was assuming that.
I don’t deny that or label it base or carnal, but sure we have that.
Wrong. That is where you are wrong. We can inherit traits that neither improve or reduce our survivability. As long as they do not damage us, they do not get weeded out. So they need not contribute to our survival. That is where you end up makign evolution out to be teleological. It is not.
That is possible. But perhaps it will take millions of years, as long as it does no damage. And then again it might not. Especially with humans, since we buffer all sorts of genes now.
Wow. 1) I am not offended. I disagree. I said nothing passive aggressive, I actually pointed out your incorrect assumptions in a perfectly polite way. 3) for Little Girls everywhere, fuck you. Little boys are perfectly capable of being passive aggressive and pouting or hallucinating and labeling other people instead of actually, hm, considering they might be partially incorrect or more so.
EyesInDark, I don’t think philosophy caused them to be childless, but rather social-inpetness and other undesirable qualities. A lot of people who pursue knowledge are rather…geeky. And most geeks are sexually undesirable to females. But it’s not the intelligence that is undesirable, it’s the social and physical qualities of the geeks that are undesirable.
What are these useless and neutral traits you speak of? Perhaps they do have evolutionary functions that we simply are unaware of?
Moreno, I was referring, primarily, to the guy with the True Grit avatar in regards to the passive-agressive BS.
I considered taking this line also. I love the idea that really Wittgenstein was trying to get laid more by Writing the Tractatus or Kant with his various critiques. Or it was an due to an inherited trait that would lead to tham having more Power that led them to write these really rather salacious texts. I would Think that philosophy professors might find all this rather flattering, but when they hit the bars…
Ah, don’t be so shallow on the issue. Perhaps these famous folks who spent their life dedicated to making philosophical masterpieces were, actually, subconsciously engaging in a bastardized form of reproduction. But this reproduction isn’t about passing one’s genes, but rather memes. Perhaps this was their form of insemination - memetic insemination. Still seems like it’s centered around a will to survive.
Love actually has very little to do with sexual reproduction except for the new-age mindless drone who can’t distinguish Love from Lust. Love is specifically the function of supporting whatever is perceived as “the good”. Sexual lust is that biological trickery.
And Philosophy has very little to do with knowledge and/or power unless it is specifically a “philosophy of knowledge and/or power”. Philosophy is a love of Wisdom (not knowledge). Lust for power and/or knowledge is not philosophy but rather an urge from a mental presumption formed out of insecurity. Wisdom is about behavior or thoughts that are good for a person, whatever that might be. Of course discovering what “good” actually means is a part of that discovery of what is good for you.
Philosophy is about discovering and correcting the kinds of mistakes that conflate the above issues concerning Love vs Lust.
When I philosophize, it’s not solely to pass on whatever knowledge/wisdom I’ve accumulated, nor is it solely to receive knowledge/wisdom, knowledge/wisdom which may or may not be immediately beneficial (from an evolutionary perspective), but to demonstrate how much smarter I am than most people, and to spread my way of thinking and feeling about the nature of things, as far and wide as possible. In the long run, much of what I do here and there, may not increase my survivability, at least in the short-term, but nonetheless you could say it’s rooted in WTL or WTP, because of the underlying psychological mechanisms in play, which in my case, stem from egotism. I mean, the constant arguing and debating, the vehement displays of aggression, posturing and declarations of victory that’re prevalent, pervasive, ubiquitous and unanimous here, are of a very Competitive and Darwinian nature, no?
Right, so philosophy in and of itself wasn’t detrimental, but indirectly detrimental. It’s not that it’s harmful per say, it may even be, or probably is helpful, but it’s a diversion from more (re)productive activities, such as acquiring wealth, power and fornicating.
Again, few traits are totally useful/useless, as environments are diverse/dynamic, and traits are complicated sorts of things, which can work in conjunction with other traits (you seem to be thinking in ones and zeroes, when Darwinism, demands a little more rigor). Some of the more useless ones might be found in the DSM, various addictions and afflictions, obsessions, phobias and neurosis, ranging from beastiality, homosexuality (not in the DSM) and pedophilia, to gluttony and a slow metabolism (a benefit in meager times (see how variable benefit/detriment can be?). From schizotypal, schizoid and paranoid personality disorder (odd behaviors) to Histrionic and Narcissism.
However, some of the aforementioned traits may be beneficial for some in the right proportions. Some traits are classified as “dysfunctional” or disordered, simply because they’re seen to cause the human organism pain and suffering (which may or may not be beneficial, pain can be another survival mechanism), or solely because they’re abnormal, and socially unacceptable. Many great minds may have been schizoids (not to be confused with schizophrenia), reclusive personalities, who spent the bulk of their lives making philosophical, scientific and technological advances, advances which increased their longevity and prosperity. On the other hand, the majority of them probably ended up alone and impoverished. There’s also more obvious detrimental traits, like cancers, tumors, suspetibilities to various diseases, cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Autism and Down’s Syndrome, etcetera, etcetera, I mean, the human orgamism is riddled with parasitic genes, and memes, resulting in a variety of detrimental behaviors and morphologies.
Why do males have nipples, why do females and males grow their hair and nails indefinitely, why do they have to cut their hair and nails when no other animals do? It’s probably a bad mutation, but we’ve compensated by inventing knives, then nail clippers, scissors and so on, which is why it’s still with us.
Of course, even these largely harmful and neutral traits are rooted in survival, I mean, take homosexuality or gluttony, they’re still rooted in fucking and feeding, in our conscious or unconscious will to live, even if they’ve been distorted, so I tend to agree with you, I’d just say there are many exceptions, and it’s far less absolute than your thinking - 1 or 0, good or bad.
I mean, mutations are essentially monkeys writing on type writers, though there may be some that’re more Lamarckian in nature. So most mutations produce cancers and tumors, which is why evolution is conservative. DNA regulates and preserves itself, because the vast majority of mutations are harmful, but of course it can only do this so well, like a message being passed down from person to person, generation to generation, gets confused, muddled, parts are forgotten, then environments come along and determine which messages are relatively fit, and which aren’t, through the process known as natural selection.
Depression, for example, is such a contentious thing. It’s overdiagnosed because drug companies and psychiatrists benefit from convincing everyone they’re sick. How much is too much, and conversely, how little is too little? Occasionally, it’s necessary to brood and ruminate on negative people and situations. Depression turns our attention to what’s harmful. By dwelling, we learn more about our problems. Consequently the more we learn, the more we can destroy/evade the source of our harm. Sometimes people overreact or underreact to negative people and situations, the former are too weak, the latter too strong, it’s all about finding/having the right balance, but what’s balanced is changing, because people and situations are changing, and what’s beneficial is determined by a myriad of cofactors - reason, in addition to authorities, instincts, intuitions and social norms, even if it’s ultimately determined by natural selection.
I agree with you teleology plays a role, that there’s no sharp divide between what’s teleology and what isn’t, so all traits, all organisms, even worms and maggots, could be said to be exhibiting some teleology, they have some awareness of what they’re doing and why, even if it pales in comparison to the awareness of higher organisms such as crows or sapiens.
Btw, if your sole impetus is to spread your genes as far and wide as possible, I suggest you begin frequenting sperm banks.
In it I’m basically stating that Truth (More accurately Knowledge) is a means to an end. That my interest is not in acquiring power as an end in itself. I don’t value power as an end in itself. Rather, that my only interest in power is it’s capacity to bring upon the things I value more.
So when I speak of love to you, I don’t believe it’s a ‘naive’ kind which you refer, or that I’m perpetuating the mentality of a junkie.
I would say someone like Satyr, for example, uses Philosophy as a means to increase his power (of manipulation), and is likely a junkie, because as he says, his core motivation is fear, and that’s why he needs to constantly compensate his fear with the acquisition and assertion of power.
I implore you to reject his ‘wisdom’. You don’t need to be afraid.
Imagine the doctor who has “found a cure” for the common cold and immediately spreads his anti-virus cure throughout the world, “going viral”. What could you guess is really going to happen even without knowing what his cure was?
My problem with what you’ve said is not that it’s wrong, but that it’s empty. Well, I think some of it is clearly wrong—but for the most part, the main parts are just empty.
Here’s what’s wrong:
“organic life is teleological” is a fine for an Aristotelian, but don’t fucking tell anyone it’s “Darwinian evolution 101”, because it’s not.
You just can’t think that survival and power are compatible goals. They’re often not. I can survive quite well if I relinquish much of my power. And if you want lots more power, you’re likely going to be jeopardizing your survival.
We do evolve traits that are not for the purpose of survival. That’s Darwinian evolution 101. (Natural selection by random mutation).
More importantly, here’s what’s fundamentally empty:
“All life is will to power”
Power is an ability to do X. But nobody ever strives after the general ability to do something in general, only something in particular—i.e., a goal. Power is not a goal, it’s just the means to fulfilling one. Here’s an analogy. Paper money is a form of power—because it allows you to buy things, and take them for yourself. Nobody ever pursues money for money’s sake—it would be like pursuing money for the paper it’s printed on. People want money because of what it can get them. That same goes for ‘power’. People don’t pursue power for power’s sake. To say that “power is a goal” is empty. It’s not a goal; it’s just a means to whatever goal you happen to have. Empty.
“All life is will to survival”
Have you ever seen the movie Joe Dirt, about the redneck janitor, where is fundamental philosophy of life was to just “keep on keepin’ on”? That’s what this one reminds me of. Should you try to survive at all costs, even if it makes you not worthy of surviving? Unlike #1, this one is actually falsifiable. People do actions all the time that are at odds with the idea that they’re just trying to survive, either genetically or memetically. Ironically, this one is also empty. According to you, the point of life is to keep living, so that you can keep living, so that you can keep living, so that you can keep living, so that… empty. There’s nothing there. It looks like empty, thinly veiled nihilism.
Here’s something I’m curious about, and I honestly don’t have the answer. What does it say about a person when they try to boil the multi-faceted complexity of life, (or creatures like us), down to a single, fundamental principle/goal/telos? —To reduce everything down to a first and final truth, once and for all?
And, what i am seeing nowdays in the society and even within intellectual populace, knowlege and wisdom are treated as synonyms but they are two entirely different things, though correlated.
Knowledge is information or intellectual power, while wisdom is the ability to use that either in right or wrong way. Intelligence is the capacity of learning and storing the knowledge.
It is not necessary that an intelligent and knowledgeable person must be wise. He may be or may be not.
In the same way, it is not necessary that a wise person must be an intelligent and knowledgeable person by default.
Now, touching almost 50, i have seen a lot of both types of persons in the real world.
And, that is why the Greeks very wisely defined philosophy as persuit of wisdom, instead of persuit of knowledge.