Posts by Harold Doyle3

ruggedraven36 said:Nature isn't exactly playing favorites with the gentle or the peace-loving types. In eras where raw power and sheer cunning are the only ways to stay alive, nature will just toss them aside—to use your own phrasing. It doesn't favor the brave, either; usually, those folks aren't quite crafty or cautious enough to make it. And it certainly isn't looking out for the animals being wiped out by human greed. If this keeps up, what kind of traits—and what kind of people—actually stand a chance at surviving versus going extinct? Survival instinct doesn't give a damn about "good" vs. "evil"—it only cares about staying upright. If "good" is what's slowly dying out, and "evil" is what survives because it's better adapted to reality, then shouldn't we be questioning the whole point of your "evolution of the absolute spirit"? Why should we even respect it? Clearly, neither biology nor evolution is going to provide an answer to that one.

Our environment—the circumstances we find ourselves in—is what carves us into who we are. It’s an inescapable reality. We like to think we’re these independent agents, totally in control, but that’s mostly just ego talking. Our surroundings mold us. They shape our perspectives, our reactions, everything. It's a heavy thought, I know. But honestly, look around. You can't deny it.
We’ve started messing around with our own genetic code lately, and honestly? We're becoming a massive evolutionary force. It's getting out of hand.
If the people of the future decide they want everyone to be mild-mannered and peaceful, they won't need to bother with endless lectures or political restructuring. They’ll just tweak the genetic code of their descendants and call it a day. Boom. Suddenly, we’re all just harmless little lambs. Biology is opening up some massive doors, and honestly, it might be the only real solution left on the table.

There is another way to look at it: blood, sweat, and tears. We’re talking about moving forward without those soft, peaceful types—the endless parade of poets, scientists, philosophers, and great figures who simply get swallowed up by the trenches of historical necessity. It's exactly like that old saying: Nothing new in the West.

Sam Martinez9 said:The simplest way to look at how instinct works is through reflex actions (those involuntary, unconscious, automatic movements). You might be sitting there reading a book, and suddenly you swat at your hand without even realizing why. Then the realization hits: ah... a mosquito bit me; I felt the sting, so I reacted instinctively to kill it.

So, are reflex movements conscious? No. However, they are triggered by an external stimulus—the mosquito bite. Instinct isn't really a tool for predicting future events; you predict events using your intellect and your past experiences.

Instinctive reactions are genetically hardwired and, aside from reacting to environmental stimuli, they trigger at specific stages of a living being's development. A good example would be migratory birds that begin building nests once they reach a certain age and a specific season arrives.

Yes, that's possible. As I've noted before, much of this confusion stems from the fact that people attach different meanings to the word "instinct."

Fear is something else entirely; fear is an emotion. The triggers for fear can vary wildly, ranging from very real threats to completely irrational ones. However, the thing about fear—much like any other emotion—is that humans have the capacity to manage it.

As for the fear of death, I've moved past it entirely. And I'm certainly not alone in that; I've heard the same from many of my peers. What remains is the fear of the process of dying—which we all share, naturally. We want a quick, painless end, not a long, agonizing one. But that isn't a fear of death; it's a fear of pain.

We’ve essentially wiped out all our natural predators—well, except for ourselves, I suppose—and we live in such incredibly secure environments now that it’s entirely possible our survival instincts might eventually just fade away. Yet, even then, we’ll likely still be preoccupied with philosophy. In my view, the pursuit of philosophy and metaphysics remains perfectly viable, even once the primal urge to stay alive has been sidelined.

Wiped them out? Hardly. We still have plenty of hostile viruses and bacteria to deal with, and frankly, those things have a much better shot at outlasting us since they actually know how to adapt.
As for that survival instinct? It isn't going anywhere. Life is dynamic. The universe is a cold, indifferent place, not exactly a welcoming neighborhood.

Sam Martinez9 said:The simplest way to look at how instinct works is through reflex actions (those involuntary, unconscious, automatic movements). You might be sitting there reading a book, and suddenly you swat at your hand without even realizing why. Then the realization hits: ah... a mosquito bit me; I felt the sting, so I reacted instinctively to kill it.

So, are reflex movements conscious? No. However, they are triggered by an external stimulus—the mosquito bite. Instinct isn't really a tool for predicting future events; you predict events using your intellect and your past experiences.

Instinctive reactions are genetically hardwired and, aside from reacting to environmental stimuli, they trigger at specific stages of a living being's development. A good example would be migratory birds that begin building nests once they reach a certain age and a specific season arrives.

Yes, that's possible. As I've noted before, much of this confusion stems from the fact that people attach different meanings to the word "instinct."

Fear is something else entirely; fear is an emotion. The triggers for fear can vary wildly, ranging from very real threats to completely irrational ones. However, the thing about fear—much like any other emotion—is that humans have the capacity to manage it.

As for the fear of death, I've moved past it entirely. And I'm certainly not alone in that; I've heard the same from many of my peers. What remains is the fear of the process of dying—which we all share, naturally. We want a quick, painless end, not a long, agonizing one. But that isn't a fear of death; it's a fear of pain.

We’ve essentially wiped out all our natural predators—well, except for ourselves, I suppose—and we live in such incredibly secure environments now that it’s entirely possible our survival instincts might eventually just fade away. Yet, even then, we’ll likely still be preoccupied with philosophy. In my view, the pursuit of philosophy and metaphysics remains perfectly viable, even once the primal urge to stay alive has been sidelined.

But you can't have philosophers or metaphysicians without that underlying instinct. Period.
They’ll vanish right along with their followers, much like those cults that end in mass suicides.

Gerald Jackson48 said:If you look at natural selection, instinct makes total sense from an evolutionary standpoint. But once you start diving into the deep end of metaphysics, things get messy fast. You end up hitting conceptual dead ends and getting lost in the weeds. Anyway, I'm just following ruggedraven36 here, thinking about how survival instincts actually function within the limits of life—especially since we all seem to have this built-in craving for what we perceive as "good."

Is immortality even considered a good thing?
What about euthanasia?
It seems like everything boils down to pure hedonism—chasing pleasure—which explains why people cling to the hope of some eternal, blissful (read: hedonistic) afterlife.
Actually, the survival instinct makes sense from a philosophical standpoint too. Without it, there would be no philosophy, no metaphysics, no struggle, and certainly no drive toward virtue or goodness.
(And if it didn't exist, honestly, nobody would even notice)

ruggedraven36 said:You two are looking at nature like some kind of dictator. Just like a tyrant wipes out anyone who won't fall in line, that's how your "nature" works. If one thing doesn't deserve respect, then neither does the other.

I see myself as an integral part of that process, not some outsider looking in... I’m just a tiny cog in the machine of the absolute spirit's evolution.
I have nothing but respect for the unfolding of the absolute spirit. To me, honoring that development is the ultimate form of self-respect.

ruggedraven36 said:Whenever people start rambling about "meaning," you’ve gotta ask—meaning for whom? At the end of the day, you're the only one sitting in the driver's seat who gets to decide if your life actually matters. If you feel like it doesn't, then even your own survival instinct is basically pointless. Nobody else gets a vote in that.

absolute spirit.

ruggedraven36 said:That’s the question, isn't it? It feels like survival instinct only actually works if you're some kind of all-powerful deity.

It only makes sense if you can adapt.

ruggeddriver21 said:At our core, we’ve all got this primal, unstoppable drive to just stay alive.
But if I'm being honest, the only real guarantee we get in this life is that eventually, we won't.
And honestly? There’s a weird kind of comfort in that—knowing that everything is temporary and we're all just passing through.

Is there some kind of catch to Rule 22, or am I just overthinking things again?

From the second we enter this world until the moment we exit it.

It makes me wonder... is this survival instinct actually a glitch in our programming?
Or does it even make sense to have it, considering the end result was already baked into the recipe from the very start?

It's simple natural selection. It makes sense as long as it favors survival. Anything that doesn't tip the scales toward staying alive loses its purpose, and nature just tosses it in the trash.

Sorry I haven't checked in sooner.
I’m currently knee-deep in laying laminate flooring throughout the house, and honestly, I have zero mental bandwidth for any deep philosophy right now. Let casualtiger2 throw out a question instead—he's always got something to ask anyway 😁... I can tell you one thing, though: putting together a jigsaw puzzle is a walk in the park compared to kneeling on your knees trying to piece together flooring...

ruggedraven36 said:To all sounds the same to me—I don't see any real difference. One is just being uninformed, whereas you? You're just being intentionally dense.

You claim to see "meaningful differences" because you've got the education, the literacy, and the intellect to back it up—but you’re just trying to drag everything into the realm of idealism. The facts are perfectly clear from an evolutionary standpoint... you just refuse to admit it, so you resort to trolling.

ruggedraven36 said:If you want to spout nonsense, go jump in the chat—that’s where everyone goes to talk trash.

That goes for you too.

ruggedraven36 said:I'm with you on the first sentence, but the second one? Not so much. Sure, evolution is a continuous process, but calling it *only* that is a stretch. And I don't buy the idea that species aren't objectively real or that they're just something humans made up. Look, humans didn't invent elephants or giraffes. They exist.

Still, it doesn't make sense to me—at least not logically—how one species could ever emerge from another if a species is defined as a group? If it's a closed loop of animals breeding within themselves to produce more of that same group, how does the "human group" even get started?

I think Engels hit the nail on the head. Labor is what actually made us.

But then you have to ask—who created labor?

ruggedraven36 said:Honestly? To me, they all just sound like the same word.

Yeah... just the gays themselves!

Amy Howard18 said:But there has never been a period of truly uniform global climate change that hit every single continent identically—at least none that we have records of—and humans seem to have been present across all parts of the planet (obviously not in equal numbers) since the beginning.
The flaw in your logic becomes pretty obvious when I ask this:
How did one Native American ancestor "just know" to migrate at almost the exact same time as his colleague in Africa? You can't claim it happened because the climate conditions in Australia and Africa were identical, because the geological and climate records for those two continents don't support that at all.

In the event of a nuclear holocaust—which is really the only realistic scenario if we ever face another major global conflict—nobody survives. Or rather, any survival on an evolutionary level would likely be reduced to a primitive state, perhaps even down to the very beginnings of life itself... from which a being called *Homo sapiens* might not necessarily re-evolve through a similar process.

Maybe it's because the ancestors of Native Americans lived in Africa.

Amy Howard18 said:But there has never been a period of truly uniform global climate change that hit every single continent identically—at least none that we have records of—and humans seem to have been present across all parts of the planet (obviously not in equal numbers) since the beginning.
The flaw in your logic becomes pretty obvious when I ask this:
How did one Native American ancestor "just know" to migrate at almost the exact same time as his colleague in Africa? You can't claim it happened because the climate conditions in Australia and Africa were identical, because the geological and climate records for those two continents don't support that at all.

In the event of a nuclear holocaust—which is really the only realistic scenario if we ever face another major global conflict—nobody survives. Or rather, any survival on an evolutionary level would likely be reduced to a primitive state, perhaps even down to the very beginnings of life itself... from which a being called *Homo sapiens* might not necessarily re-evolve through a similar process.

Look, we don't actually possess enough nuclear firepower to cause more devastation than, say, a ten-kilometer asteroid or a massive supervolcano... and life has survived those before. Some species went extinct, others made it.
Who knows? Maybe something even more successful than Homo sapiens evolves next—something like a "Homo nucleus," or whatever.

Amy Howard18 said:Is there any geological or climatic record in Earth's history that actually supports this idea? I mean, climate is almost always some kind of localized phenomenon, whereas this famous "descent from the trees" seemed to happen simultaneously across pretty much every location at once.

Dynamic circumstances are a constant through all of time and every era... you can't realistically measure the exact volume of that dynamism. Too much volatility can wipe out an individual entirely, which happens all the time in nature.
A war that pushes that level of intensity to its absolute limit would most likely just result in the extinction of the species.

Look, we’ve had massive climate shifts before. There's plenty of geological data and fossil evidence out there to prove it. Just do a quick Google search; you'll find some fascinating stuff. There are even great documentaries on the subject that lay out the theories and assumptions supporting those claims.
We also have to admit that these interpretations are simple, beautiful, elegant, and logical... it would be a real shame if they weren't true.

Amy Howard18 said:Is there any geological or climatic record in Earth's history that actually supports this idea? I mean, climate is almost always some kind of localized phenomenon, whereas this famous "descent from the trees" seemed to happen simultaneously across pretty much every location at once.

Dynamic circumstances are a constant through all of time and every era... you can't realistically measure the exact volume of that dynamism. Too much volatility can wipe out an individual entirely, which happens all the time in nature.
A war that pushes that level of intensity to its absolute limit would most likely just result in the extinction of the species.

Someone always survives—at least, that's been the pattern so far. And the one who makes it through is either incredibly lucky or has an ace up their sleeve.

Sam Martinez9 said:I'm curious about your reasoning there. Could you elaborate on that thought process?

My point was that a baby born 100,000 years ago could be raised just like any child born today. Why? Because they are still *Homo sapiens*. Genetically speaking, they are identical to us. They possess all the biological predispositions required to integrate into our modern society—to use smartphones, computers, and so on. In the exact same way, a child born today possesses every genetic predisposition needed to thrive in the world of *Homo sapiens* from 100,000 years ago.

It works the same way whether you take a child born 4,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, or even just a century ago; we could raise them just like any modern infant born in an American hospital today.

The genetic blueprint remains the same. What a child ultimately becomes depends entirely on the environment in which they are raised.

Not true.
Homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals later on, so a baby born 100,000 years ago wouldn't share the exact same genetic predispositions as a modern-day child.

Amy Howard18 said:Following that logic, it would imply that early humans lived in plenty for ages, which is why their evolution would have stalled—a claim that flies in the face of actual history. On the flip side, it would suggest that modern times (our era of abundance) shouldn't coincide with our greatest period of advancement, which is exactly when it happened... it’s just completely inconsistent reasoning when you look at how history actually unfolds.

That line of thinking is basically just a variation of the idea that conflict and war are necessary drivers of evolutionary progress, and I couldn't disagree more.

We were coasting along for a while, just playing around, and then suddenly everything went south. We hit a wall. Why?
Why on earth would anyone climb down from a tree if they were perfectly happy up there? It makes zero sense. Truly.
Maybe climate change has been playing favorites, targeting the shrubs and the weeds while leaving the trees alone. It’s all a bit skewed, isn't it? Honestly, let's just head down there and see who's still standing when the dust settles. Then we can talk.

Amy Howard18 said:Following that logic, it would imply that early humans lived in plenty for ages, which is why their evolution would have stalled—a claim that flies in the face of actual history. On the flip side, it would suggest that modern times (our era of abundance) shouldn't coincide with our greatest period of advancement, which is exactly when it happened... it’s just completely inconsistent reasoning when you look at how history actually unfolds.

That line of thinking is basically just a variation of the idea that conflict and war are necessary drivers of evolutionary progress, and I couldn't disagree more.

We’re living in a high-speed environment, and honestly, that just makes evolutionary shifts happen even faster. It’s all moving at breakneck speed. War, constant conflict, any kind of chaos or misfortune—it’s all part of that volatile landscape. Everything is shifting constantly.

ruggedraven36 said:Not necessarily. Liberation wars are just one possible scenario for how an awareness of freedom evolves. Even if we hadn't fought those specific wars, that drive for liberty would have surfaced eventually—just through a different set of circumstances.

How, though?

ruggedraven36 said:Look, Hegel defines history as this steady march toward a greater consciousness of freedom. In his view, freedom is the only real necessity in history.

Better a grave than a slave!

Which means wars are just part of that inevitable process.

ruggedraven36 said:That’s a massive stretch.

Hegel wouldn't have said it that way.

No.

ruggedraven36 said:That’s a massive stretch.

Hegel wouldn't have said it that way.

Does the Absolute Spirit Wandering Around just wander aimlessly through its own development? What about historical necessity? Are you actually suggesting there's some chaotic element at play here?

Amy Howard18 said:What you’re saying hits home because I've always found this part of human evolution absolutely mind-blowing. If you look at the current timeline, it feels like it took us millions of years just to realize we should climb down from the trees and start living on the ground. Then, we spent another 190,000 years just figuring out how to write things down about ourselves... yet, in just ten thousand years since then, we've managed to master nuclear energy and launch ourselves into space. It honestly sounds completely unrealistic... there's definitely something broken in that timeline!

It's off.

The whole thing comes down to dynamic circumstances.
If you're living in abundance and everything is peaceful, there's zero incentive to change.
Someone once wrote—and I'm paraphrasing here—that evolution races down mountain streams but crawls through river valleys.
We didn't just wake up one day and decide to innovate; circumstances forced our hands.
In sports terms: you don't mess with a winning roster.
Our ancestors had to get off those trees because they had to. They had to stand upright, they had to harness fire, they had to invent calendars, they had to build atomic bombs... Hegel and his followers would call that historical necessity.