Humanity and it Progress in the 21st Century
- Thread starter Patrick Williams
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Its not, there is angst and depression because we are too comfortable and humans are evolutionary programmed to require misery to define the good times. Some of the happiest people I met were the poorest who had no education or access to information. Like the people I met in rural China. They didnt sit around with 20 cats crying themselves to sleep taking a bottle of mind numbing pills because they were "sad" there wasnt time for that. They were busy surviving. IMO most depression is a torturous form of boredom. All life is a slow but sure march to death, pluck out the will and day to day need to survive and you will find things to worry about instead. They dont take Ativan or anti-depressants in places like China or India. Thats something thats by and large confined to the 1st world where everyone is so damned bored because the struggle to survive is so minimal.
QFT! I wish people would STOP assuming that we all have the same exact needs as they do. I dont seek God, I dont need spirituality. Those IMO are distractions. All things in life are distractions for the most part, but those happen to be the least productive of them.
It would seem that you would agree that no one needs "spirituality". And certainly not Humanity as a whole.
It would seem that you believe that "spirituality" has an over all negative effect.
It is fine to feel that way, but it is only rational to accept the fact that you might be wrong.
Why are you getting so upset?
And seriously, when was the last time someone withered up and died because they didn't stop to consider the intricacies of their own personal idiosyncratic relationship with the universe?
Anyways, this is a thread about progress and humanity, not spirituality.
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I don't think I am wrong, I truly believe that human kind would be better off without such thoughts. Of course I can admit that we may not be there yet though, in a position where its possible to let that go, some of us still need it. I think one day those thoughts and beliefs will go into the rubbish bin where they belong, but I can say that that's not true for right now, this time. But you're right, I cannot rationally say I am 100% right. There is no 100% anything when it comes to knowing things.
Without it, I would go mentally and emotionally crazy, and that would in turn affect me physically and harm my survival... but I'm no one.
I read this as 'are we losing our humanity ' but I think you see it as 'how is the Iphone making us more human' (that's a little sarcastic, forgive me I am from New Jersey). For many the idea of being human or more human is tightly bound to their notions of Spirit, Soul, Spirituality and Soulfulness.
What is human progress really, is it only measured in concrete terms or is the an inner metric that needs to be considered?
As I said earlier, nothing's really new; we just have better toys and tools. America today compares really closely to the Roman Empire and is probably suffering the same fate. History moves in circles, even if we progress to space-faring people, it's just a matter of time before a rebellion, a war, a catastrophe (natural or man-made) will throw us backwards or divide us.
Brains uploaded into an immortal robot body and connected to the internet? Some people will want that I guess but if I remember all my childhood shows and games, the immortal character just wants someone to kill him in the end.
Brains uploaded into an immortal robot body and connected to the internet? Some people will want that I guess but if I remember all my childhood shows and games, the immortal character just wants someone to kill him in the end.
Some people will want that I guess but if I remember all my childhood shows and games, the immortal character just wants someone to kill him in the end.
You know that thats just fiction right?
The overbearing question in my mind as I read this is: what is human?
Then: is there a universal definition or is it more flexible, related to time and space (culture)?
After that: how would one ascertain what is more or less human?
From a psychological standpoint, I'm unsure if people actually change. It seems to me that the same wants and needs form our cognitive adventure through this world regardless of time. The means to achieve these certainly change through history, and I personally think there has never been more opportunity for personal growth (case in point, the Internet as globalization). If there is progress - however you define that - in our species, I think it is simply the accessibility of self improvement and innovation.
I recently watched the animated film Ghost in the Shell and it explores the limits and psychological effects of technological progress. Virtual reality, cyborgs, and reincarnation are thrown together to tentatively form immortality, arguably humanity's greatest achievement as the ultimate denial of their mortal nature. Very good film and highly relevant to this discussion, in my opinion. (It's also the precursor to The Matrix - most wouldn't believe how much got ripped off of GITS.)
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What I am trying to convey here is that the primary biological instinct in humans is survival. But not indefinite survival, survival with the intent of reproduction. Modern, anatomically correct humans lived in a harsh environment and survival took supreme effort. Once the body aged and its ability to procreate diminished, that effort demanded more and more "psychic" energy (eg will power).
It was, in my opinion, the development and tapping into other aspects of consciousness that gave humanity the psychic energy to wish to survive. This is the essence of "Spirituality".
We have not developed into this complex and largely "imaginary" society simply because we "figured it out". There had to and has to be something else that is the source of that energy. Without "it" the modern individual will not thrive.
To those who would believe that they are doing just fine with out "it" I would suggest that they have and are in tune with "it" unconsciously.
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yep, that's what I am saying. And I have said it three or four times now. I think I will stop saying it. Thank you for your input in this matter.
Humans developed spirituality as a way to survive. Spirituality creates unity amongst groups of people. In nature, if you are a human, there is a huge advantage to having unity with others. Some anthropologists hypothesize that we defeated the Neanderthals because they failed to develop spirituality. Some believe spirituality was a major factor that separated us from them. We became spiritual, we learned to see people who are unrelated to us as brothers and sisters, so we were able to hunt in bigger groups and bring down larger game. Spirituality gives us feelings of awe, these feelings of awe are what coerced us to travel farther than the Neanderthals and spread our genetics across the map. Spirituality tells us to keep fighting when our logical brain tells us that chances are slim, this helped us fight through the hardest of challenges and prevented us from being too smart for our own good.
This is why hatred of religion bothers me. People are spiritual by design, it's part of our genes. If you condemn someone for being spiritual or religious, then you are condemning them for being human. It's just as immoral as telling someone they can't be gay. Sure we haven't found a "gay gene", but that doesn't prove homosexuality is unimportant to natural selection or that homosexuality is not determines by genetics.