We will do about everything in our power to survive in the presence of immediate death. What drives us to survive?
Fear of the unknown?
Your thoughts please.
I think the most that drives us to survive is we fear body harm in the immediate and fear of a painful death, and anything else is after that. I may be wrong.
Then how do you explain people who have stood unarmed against guns and even tanks to fight for their rights? Clearly merely survival isn’t enough for humanity.
the same way I explain people who leap from tall buildings believing they can fly…
then again, sanity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…
-Imp
The subtle, needless biproducts of evolutionary survival programming can grow to overwhelm the initial neccesity they were born of. Subtle, perverse brain activity can be so metaphorical/metaphysical/poetic as to completely override any survival programming. These traits arise from the imperfect, albeit blindly economical evolutionary process…it can be argued that they too are programming, but they’re not specifically there for survival, they were only necessary in concert with other traits that did/do promote survival.
Self programmed through evolution? What is the purpose of us being programmed?
yf
Whitelotus – the biproduct may not die out, but its prescient that you’d say “die.” The biproduct becomes its own organism with its own parallel evolution, and its relationship with its host brings both impedements and promotions.
In terms of proving it…I think the capacity for certain brain activity was good for survival, but the necessary leftover was that in order for W to problem solve or have strength X to survive natural enemy Y, you also had to possess negative quality A (because A and X are somehow comingled), that could either cause ongoing needless “absurd” pain, or cause W to self-destruct at some point, in keeping with your die-out scenario, although organisms with a preponderance of A traits outlive organisms with a preponderence of Ws original traits…leading to more perpetual absurd (or pointless) pain and less pure (direct) survival programming, and more needless biproducts that happen to be suited, at least for a time, to outlive that which their composite products were born out of.
My proof is your mind, fool.
I didn’t suggest anywhere that survival was enough, I said everywhere that survival cannot be enough or there would be no suicide.
“People who have stood unarmed against guns and even tanks to fight for their rights,” are people who are daring and brave and fight for a cause and don’t mind inconveniences or pain, but the general public does, that’s who I was talking about and not brave people with a purpose and objective in mind.
I agree. Everyone has the same reactions to danger. Fight or flight. We’re nothing but animals trying to stay alive in order to reproduce, we just make life more complicated.
Who/what “programs” us? Why do people still have a drive to survive even after they procreate? I’ve never heard of a case where one’s drive to survive diminishes after each offspring.
Valid.
Something else I was contemplating: What is the purpose of death?
If we backtrack way back into evolution we find that were once one-celled organisms that duplicated in lieu of reproducing. These one-celled organisms did not die, in fact, not until fairly recently has death played a role in our evolution. This leads me to believe death has a purpose. What is this purpose? To prevent overpopulation? To give us a sense of urgency to reproduce?