[Chronic Beauty]

One could argue the state of mind which we label as "insanity" is true enlightenment. Insanity in my opinion is the realisation that nothing really matters, and as result emotions or instincts have no affect over our decision making, or lack of.

If you are "insaine" and in your mind set nothing really matters, why should or could you fear anything? Killing 150 000 people will mean no more to you than crushing an ant under neith your foot, and why should it?

As we gradually evolve society pics and choses at what pre programmed morrals are needed, why should we let beurocrats decide what we do and why we should or shouldnt do it.

If i had the potential to kill you all right now with the click of a button, would it really matter? If the human mind was equiped with the abilities to develop tools to destroy the world, why is it wrong for that same mind to use these tools?

[shahar2k]

fear spiel:
fear is a premitive alert signal, but it's still here, which means it's not causing harm to the point where it is a problem for successfull breeding. if you think about it, humans don't really NEED legs anymore, I mean we have enough abilities to construct devices to replace them, however legs still seem to be usefull to successfull procreation (you know, fornication )
the thing is, how you deal with it, is the true thing which people call fear. some can ignore it, some act based on it all the time. often you'll find people compensating for fear. for example, the fear of being ignored might lead to incessant yelling and abnoxious behaviour, but the actuall fear is caused because you are faced with the possibility that you might be ignored, and you have no Idea what to do in that situation. all fear is based on the unknown, on situations we haven't encountered enough to know what to do in, with things we can't predict, and things out of our controll. all fear really is, is admittance that you aren't the center of the universe. (scary, huh)


gender spiel:
the lines between males and females have begun to blur indeed, however I think that they have a LONG way to go before eithe is useless. think statistically, what do women do, and what do men do? now I know many will resent the statistic versus artistic argument where men are stronger in dealing with systems, and the defined worlds of understanding, where women are are better at the more intuitive tasks, that require less precise but more directed abilities. however, I don't think that it can be denied that women and men, (with various exceptions) are on seprate ends of the scales here.

humanity spiel:
this was from a social viewpoint, however biologically, either could really be eliminated, I mean a woman is born with all her eggs, and loses them, while a man manufactures sperm all his life. however, being that there is a sperm bank, and a storage of eggs, it has been proven that either the men can be eliminated, and artificial insemenation used instead, or even the woman, as it is possible (however socially unacceptable) so use other species to give birth to an implanted embryo of another species, as was proven in several cloning cases.
none of these methods however are moraly accepted (there's no correct or incorrect with morals)

Sanity spiel:
as for sanity and insanity. you have to consider a point where the lack of consideration poses a threat to the survival of the species, because it is at that point, things change. You have to look at things in terms of percentages, if you kill 1% of the people on earth, it won't matter in the long run, although it will matter if it is something like 90% of people with HIV, you will make some sort of a diffrence. see it's all in the percentages. there is a point where if you kill enough people it will cause a collapse in the species. much like an antfarm, the human race is a superorganism, in which every person is nearly insignificant, but it can be collapsed (not enough people who know how to get food for the rest, or not enough people to reestablish society)
anyways, everything is relative. I'm an ultra rationalist, I don't think in terms of morality, or any of that stuff, only action and reaction. however it's impossible to keep up, being that I am a human myself

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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!

[Xcal]

Wow, interesting topic.

Here's my take on fear. Fear is just one of the components of primal survival tools that we are equipped with, as animals. These survival tools are instincts. We feel these instincts as emotions. For example, the primal instinct to protect one's loved ones can be closely tied in with the rage of a man attacking those who try to hurt his family. Emotion is a term created by humans to explain the sensations and expressions of experiencing these primal instincts. Lust, love, rage, fear, happiness, etc. None of them have any basis on logical cognitive thought.

Unfortunately, primal instincts/emotions work on a subconscious level, so it is very difficult for us to control them. This is why the saying goes "you are who you are". Because everyone's "instinct pattern" differs (some have high tolerance to rage, some have high tolerance to fear, etc.), they have indirect effects on personality makeups and behavioral patterns.

The ideal self? For me, it would be to control emotions without completely losing the ability to feel emotion. If we can do this, I truly believe that there is nothing the human mind can't accomplish. Primal instincts and cognitive intelligence is like the yin and yang. As a person, one cannot exist without the other. Emotions are responsible for bringing both pleasure (the rewards of living), and pain (the penalties of living). Thus, if you take away all emotions you take away both pleasure and pain. On the other hand, when we cannot control our emotions, we lose our ability to choose pleasure or pain. This is called the Perspective Paradox - In order for one to achieve one's goal, one must lose the reason for wanting to achieve the goal.

Bhuddhism teaches you that in life, pain is the majority, and happiness/pleasure is a very small minority. This is also due to "earthly needs" (basically emotions). They also teach that "emotions" are bound to the "self". This basically means that if we don't give a rat's ass about ourselves, we won't have emotions (which is true in many aspects). So they teach you to rise above the "self" and care about *everything* as a whole. This love of everything(awakening/nirvana) is supposed to make you feel only happiness. Personally, I see flaws in some parts of this belief system.

Anyways, I can talk all week about emotions, instincts, the subconscious, perception of reality, etc., since I see all these as tied together, but I'll stop here.

My conclusion. You can't get rid of fear. Fear is both a useful and harmful thing. The key is your ability to distinguish whether it is useful or harmful, and will yourself to bypass it's effects when it is being harmful. This ability is hard to train, but possible.



[This message has been edited by Xcal (edited January 04, 2001).]

[shahar2k]

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