No, we have motives for our actions. Most people don’t intentionally kill even insects without the insects being specific pests or biting them or raiding their garbage or whatever.
I am asking you why you do something most people don’t. We could discuss kicking rocks, but you’ve announced you do it often ‘for no reason at all’. Presumably this meant the bugs in question were not potentially harmful or damaging, but for the heck of it you did it. Why do you do this? Or to ask in another way, why might it be appealing to you, but not to others who also have no qualms at all about killing irritating or potentially harmful insects, to do it for no reason at all?
I am not convinced that most people wouldn’t do the same things that I mentioned in the anecdotes I provided in my OP, especially the ones that happened during a meal. Rather, I think most people would want those bugs out of the picture. I know plenty of others who would act similarly in each situation, even the last one. I also think that it may be illogical to assume that there is some sort of appeal motivating the act, rather than idle caprice.
Just to weigh in on your poll, I dislike anyone doing anything void of purpose, myself included. I accept that I have a moral right to defend my own stable survival against intruders just as others do. If a bug is not threatening that concern in any way, I dislike intruding on it’s equal right to try to survive.
It is similar to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (consider the consequences of contention) rather than “do unto others before they do unto you” (consider the power opportunity).
Or perhaps, “live and let live - unless there is actual threat”. It can get complicated so I understand when mindless people just assume the mentally easier path or mindless emotional urge.
Politically it is a very different story. Societies and political parties are formed so as to support the citizens. In that case, society leaders SHOULD NOT “step on individuals” who threaten political concerns unless those issues raise to the level of threatening the lives of other citizens - not the political parties involved.
I specifically asked about why you do it in situations where
So the ‘during a meal’ type situation is something else. It is bothering you. It is coming near your food - there might be some concern about disease, certainly deep in our genes. I am asking when there is no reason at all why do you do it. When there are no benefits or potential concerns or even irritation.
Look at where I highlighted your quotation: your question is unanswerable my philosopher buddy. You are acknowledging there is no reason at all why I do it, but then asking the reason why I do it. What the what! It is like you are almost answering your own question in the same sentence.
No,you are assuming that your knowledge cannot change, your self-knowledge. That since you haven’t looked at that, looking at it can make no difference. You are also confusing YOUR phrasing as necessarily being literal.
You said tha there was no reason, but obviously (and I cannot emphasize that enough) there is a reason. Do you tear leaves off trees and bushes? If not, there is some reason you attack insects when you have no specific reason to attack those particular insects in that moment, but do not attack botanical life. If that example doesn’t work there are likely others.
So 1) I think if you looked you could potentially find out why you like to kill bugs. 2) I don’t take your utterance literally. I take it to mean, even if they are not bothering you during a meal or for some other reason they are a negative presence in that moment, you still will do it. I do not accept it as a literal conclusion that there is no reason for it. I understand that you, so far, are defending that as if it makes sense. But it doesn’t.
We do things for reasons. What is he reason that you attack insects even when they are not bothering you? Why is that your habit and not that of other people?
Yes, we sometimes do things for reasons. We also do plenty of things for no reason – or at least no reason is consequential or meaningful. If you purchased a blue car and I asked you: “What is the reason you picked a blue car over the green car?” then you would probably state “I like blue more than green.” Fair enough. But then, I asked “but what is the specific reason you like blue more than green? We do things for reasons.” Then, where do you go at that point? Perhaps by saying, “I just wanted the blue more.” Then I ask, “Well, what is the specific reason you picked blue when others didn’t? Why do YOU pick blue but not other people?”
The point I am making is: don’t read too far into things or draw some kind of meaning from each and every whimsical action.
Also, “attack insects?” That is such weird verbiage. Attack makes it sound like there’s a battle. Insects wandering near my feet don’t get attacked; they get crushed.
Anyway, the best way I think I can answer your question is “because I felt like it.” If you think you can break that down any further, we can try.
First, the reason we do things is often buried in all the myriad factors in our lives going back to our childhood. Variables we have little or no real understanding or control over.
Someone would have to have followed Jakeyjake around 24/7, year in and year out. Noting all of the experiences he had involving bugs until they come to one [or more] that might explain how and why he thinks and feels as he does “here and now”.
Then there are the parts buried in his subconscious and unconscious mind. And who really knows how our genes predispose us to go in different directions.
And then the possibility that we live in a wholly determined universe in which he steps on bugs for whatever reason only because he could never have not had those reasons and could never have not stepped on bugs.
I like your fatalistic way of questioning the nature of things. I especially like your last statement, which seems to suggests the possibility that the conditions of this specific universe have been determined in such a way that it would never have been possible for there to exist a version of me who didn’t step on bugs, because its conditions only allowed for the events and experiences that led up to my indifference toward the bugs that I step on.
Oh my god, I can’t believe I just typed that out. Did I describe the possibility in question correctly? And in your opinion, that does exonerate me for my sins?
Do you sometimes do things without any reason at all?
It seems to me it is meaningful or consequential to the one choosing the act or they wouldn’t choose it, especially with any regularity.
But so far you haven’t reached the same stage in our discussion. You haven’t said ‘I like killing bugs.’ Or I like killing bugs more that [activity X] you could have done instead.
Do you know what the emoticon you chose was? evilfun. That is, with the word fun in there. It’s certainly an uneven battle.
Well, there’s the part above about you liking and preferring it to other activities. We can start there.
Let’s raise the stakes for a moment to see what I am getting at. If you killed small mammals without any particular cause - they are not pests in your house, they are not trying or succeeding at getting at your food, etc. - this would be considered more problematic to more people. It can even be a sign of mental illness. Now small mammals are closer to us, more likley to elicit empathy and so on. But one might wonder why someone does that. Even you might wonder, despite being a meat eater, pest killer, why someone did that, what their motivation was. You might or might not worry if you came home and found your kid in the backyard stoming on squirrels. Why is this the activity he chooses and not another. Why make even the slight extra effort to kill something when one has no practical motivation to do so?
So while the stakes are lower with insects and the difference between us and them greater, it’s still a question why this activity, however short in time each time, is attractive?
The intention of my question was to spotlight the one-sidedness of his attitude … he expects others to explain their behavior while he can’t or won’t explain his own.
Nothing in your response addresses that.
Sure, one could say that life is too complicated to understand motivations and leave it there. He and others are all off the hook.
The determinism/free will conundrum is embedded philosophically in what is called an antinomy: “a contradiction between two beliefs or conclusions that are in themselves reasonable; a paradox.”
Both philosophers and scientists have been grappling with it now for thousands of years. And, to the best of my current knowledge, it has not been resolved definitively.
Only I take the quandary even further back. How to explain individual attitudes about stepping on bugs going back to a definitive understanding of existence itself: why does something exist and not nothing? And why this something and not something else?
But: accepting that no one seems able to answer questions like this, let’s assume that we have free will and this something does in fact exist and we are in it.
Okay, how then to explain individual reactions to stepping on bugs. As scientists and/or philosophers, can that be pinned down? Maybe. Maybe not.
What I surmise though is embedded in this:
Someone would have to have followed you around 24/7, year in and year out. Noting all of the experiences you had involving bugs until they come to one [or more] that might explain how and why you think and feel as you do “here and now”.
The part I explore in my signature threads.
And the distinction I make between facts that can be established about any particular individual stepping or not stepping on bugs for any particular reasons rooted in dasein, and the part where scientists, philosophers and ethicists attempt to discover what all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to do when confronted with bugs in any particular context.
As for other “versions” of ourselves, the multiverse is yet another one of those conundrums that science and philosophy have barely scratched the surface regarding.
For example, given this:
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
And this:
“It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe.”
Yes, the part that, in regard to stepping on bugs for any number of personal reasons, is, in my opinion, rooted in dasein.
Yes, but how far removed is that for mere mortals from the total understanding and control that most attribute to God. Besides, how likely is the part where mere mortals either step or do not step on bugs going to factor into Judgment Day for them?
Who only knows that unequivocally If not God?
Huh? If the laws of physics were fully within our grasp, it could be calculated precisely. We just don’t know if that includes the brain ordering us – compelling us – to release the ball. Or, sure, whether or not there is a bug on the lane that the ball [or our shoe] might squash to smithereens.
I read your posts and I have no interest in responding. For various reasons.
I gave you a short form explanation of why you should not be expecting a reply. I could have just gone silent but I decided to say something as an ending. It wasn’t a retort.
=D> 
