Is humanity’s lack of fertility a portent of doom?

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
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There seems to me to be something wrong with the human race in that it accepts some things about itself as being ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ that any sane being would see as symptoms indicating deep trouble. I will example 2 related phenomena, both concerning fecundity and creativity.

Human beings are, as far as I am aware, unique in the animal world in having such horrendous difficulty in giving birth. Or not entirely unique because the animals they have bred for meat and milk and work and such have also become unable to give birth without excessive difficulty. Some of them are even unable, now, to give birth at all without assistance. Of course the farm and work animals that we have bred have become, for the most part, freaks of nature that would die out if not kept going by the intensive care they get from their owners. They are decidedly unhealthy, unnatural creatures……………………

…………………and we look so like them in so many ways that one has to ask if we, too, have become decidedly unhealthy and unnatural creatures? I think we have. I think our difficulties in giving birth point to a very sick species whose days are numbered — unless they can, somehow, reverse the trend.

Related to the difficulty of giving birth to our young is our difficulty in bringing forth new ideas, our extraordinary lack of creativity.

This article was actually inspired by hearing Lavinia Greenlaw (poet) on the radio this morning describing the astonishingly, not to say bizarrely, difficult process of giving birth to new poems. In the first place, ideas are so rare and precious that she carries a notebook around with her so that she can catch the germ of an idea whenever and wherever it might occur. From that first germ of an idea it could take 10 years before the final poem was completed, 10 years of partly just waiting, but partly of working at it and straining with all the pain and difficulty of a mother giving birth — actually, of course, the psychological and physical processes of ‘creativity’ do parallel one another, and one can understand much about the processes of creativity in the arts, sciences etc by accepting and using this truth.

The difficulties described by Greenlaw are such as I have heard described time and again by writers, poets and artists — human beings have as much trouble giving birth to creative ideas as they have giving birth to their young. While nature is excessively fecund, humanity struggles to bring forth each new human being and each new idea. If nature were similarly afflicted then the human race would never have happened, the living world would never have happened — the natural world could not survive if it was as barren as the mind of man.

Such lack of fecundity as humanity displays, then, is very unnatural. There is something far wrong with beings that have to struggle so hard to find new ideas that they prize originality and cherish those in whom they find it, rather than just taking high levels of originality for granted as normal in everyone. It should be the other way around: it should be that people who have difficulty coming up with ideas, people whose minds are not as fecund as nature, should be considered to have something wrong with them and should be getting help.

If I was to ask for a defence of humanity, I would anticipate that someone would offer this idea: that human beings have difficulty giving birth because of our intelligence ie because of our large brains which are housed in large heads. So, it is our large heads that make giving birth so difficult. My reply would be: tosh. Nature has found ways of giving trouble-free birth to all sorts of extraordinary sizes and shapes and designs of beings; I really do not think that it is beyond nature to allow for an enlarged head.

So, any other ideas that suggest humanity might not be in such a bad way as I suppose?

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Well as far as birthing babies. Everyone is different physically. I know women and animal who can pop babies out without breaking a sweat. Others like me had issues due to size of me and a large healthy infant.
As far as original ideas, its about cycles of use. They will pop out when needed or wanted or by accident.

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Did I mention in my last comment to you something about a Fool’s Paradise?

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Quite likely you did.
Have you checked out the patent office online? You might want to. There are some pretty interesting things being patented. The automobiles that come out this year were designed years ago. What is on the drawing boards now will be put out years from now, this is true for so many machines. New is just around the corner. In my fifty years I have seen so many new things and more still coming.

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That you are impressed by the contents of the patent office merely tells me how barren your mind is.

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…someone is headed for depression… :confused:

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Rotflmao. It must be him cuz I have my humor intact.
Some people are happy only when they complain though.

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Could you have any more blatantly missed the point of what she said? I don’t think so, somehow. She was merely making a point and using the patent office as an example, not declaring how brilliant anything being patented is.

Humans are full of creativity, but not all of us extraordinarily so. For many, solving the problems of day-to-day life require pragmatism and creativity. Maybe you’re just not looking in the right places, or perhaps you just think that something must be extraordinary to be of value, but if that were the case - if all of us possessed extraordinary creative talents - we wouldn’t call it “extraordinary” anymore, would we? No, we’d consider it the norm and you’d be right back in the same boat you’re in now. Perhaps the problem is not humanity, perhaps the problem is your perception.

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Thank-you, well put Blurry.

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May I piont out a little flaw in your logic, Blurry — it may help you to sharpen up that “blurry” vision. If we all possessed extraordinary creative talents, we would, as you say, not call it extraordinary any more. However, we would NOT be back in the same boat. The boat we are in now is sinking because people have become so disfunctional. If people improved their minds so that they all became very creative, then we could refloat that sinking boat.

Kriswest — please read this too since you so admire this faulty logic. It really is tragic that such devotees of rationality so singularly fail to be able to employ it with any competence — or is it that what you enjoy so much is someone supporting you for good or ill. In other words, it is not any concern for truth or reality, it is merely whether or not people agree with you — easier to work in a gang than alone. (Which, incidentally, is what these forums are about. It’s not about anything so useful as teasing out problems, as getting to the truth of things, it’s about gangs. Like lads always do, people join a club and then they support that club against all comers. It’s not about whether that club is good or bad. It’s about supporting the home team, whatever its merits or demerits — which is about gang warfare. So philosophers and psychologists try to figure out why there is so much war in the world. Look at these forums — the world is populated by lads who like nothing better than a fight ---- in SPITE of all their protestations to the contrary, in spite of all their claims to the virtues of compassion, tolerance, respect for others etc, etc.)

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Well that’s nice, but if you want to clear up my “blurry” vision, you might want to work on your own first. As I said, for some people just getting through day to day requires creativity. So what do you define creativity as? In what way do we need to be more creative that would also make us less dysfunctional? Your creativity is someone else’s dysfunction, my friend, so you’re going to have to be more specific than just, “creativity will heal the world!” Blurry vision, indeed.

Creativity is not a “thing” we can possess more or less of, creativity is a process that we engage in.

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What can I say? I obviously failed abyssmaly to sharpen up your vision. Consequence? More slurry from Blurry!

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So…I ask you questions about your views in a thread you created, and instead of answering me, you dismiss everything I’ve said with the tired accusations that I don’t having anything to add to the conversation? Through answering my questions you have the opportunity to further “clear up my blurry vision,” something you apparently really want to do, and you totally copped out. It’s just so…blatant.

…are you serious right now?

What the fuck is going on around here? Is there something in the water?

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I don’t see any evidence of humanity’s infertility. So, a small minority of males have reduced levels of healthy sperm and smaller minority of females have reduced chances of conceiving. But this is such a tiny percentage of the human race. If it were a majority, 50% or more, then it would became a problem. And therefore could eventually lead to the end of mankind.
I think, however, that most of the fertility problems people have are caused by lifestyle - diet, stress etc and not by evolutionary mistakes.
Difficulty during labour is not, usually, due to the size of the head of the baby. The sections of the soft, un-fused crania move and fold slightly while ‘exiting’ the birth canal. A lot of the difficulties arise due to tiredness of the mother, a narrow pelvic opening which can be hereditary or otherwise, and most often doctors and midwives prefer intervention before fetal stress becomes an issue.

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There is no point in my answering your questions. It would be like trying to teach somebody archery, someone who cannot see the target because of poor sight. Until that person gets glasses or somehow improves their sight, the archery teacher is just wasting their time. So, I repeat, there is no point in my naswering your questions until you are able to focus more clearly, and while reading my posts may serve to help you to sharpen up, that is incidental and I have certainly no intention of making it my job to do so.

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I agree though the main problem is drug addiction, power addiction.

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So that’s your excuse - I couldn’t possibly understand you. You know this somehow (magic?) so fuck explaining yourself.

That’s cute. Could you be any more of an assuming, pretentious douchebag? I seriously doubt that you’re so much smarter than me that everything you say would go right over my head. What a fucking loser.

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Blurry, if I may correct you on one point? It should be “fucking arrogant loser”.
His type has so much arrogance it blinds them.

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troll time