Honestly, there’s no way to know if you’ll actually check everything off your bucket list before you kick the bucket (actually, I’m pretty sure even after you're gone, there’ll still be stuff left undone. 😉 ).
It’s such an obvious fact, but man, we just hate facing it: I might not even make it through tonight. I could honestly pass away right in the middle of typing this—if you're actually reading this, then I guess I made it. So what does that mean for my life? Like, do I really have anything smarter to do with my final moments than posting on an online message board?
And speaking of being open-minded—yeah, I think I’ve definitely become more tolerant. I’ve had some great teachers here, and trust me, I’m still learning, but people like adriatic, slavko, planinar... just to name a few. 👍
Desirée said:you can't upload a photo straight from your computer!! It has to be hosted online somewhere!
Actually, you totally can. Just hit that "paperclip" icon to attach the image from your hard drive to the post. Once it's attached, just click that paperclip icon again and select the filename, and boom—you're good to go. nn12.jpg
Rebecca Cox2 said:Actually, it's the exact opposite. I'm trying to convince you guys that universal human needs are just as real today for the vast majority of people (not everyone, obviously—there’s always that outlier at the edge of the bell curve) as they were 10,000, 100,000, or even a million years ago.)
If you ask me, any way you look at history is filtered through how we see the present and what we want for the future (even if the person doing the interpreting doesn't realize it, and even when things get framed as "historical fact," I still think it's all just interpretation). So, I'm definitely not convinced—actually, I'm totally skeptical—that anyone can have a clear picture of what people needed 100,000 years ago. Honestly, any story about their needs feels like nothing more than a myth to me (and yeah, that includes those old stories about the "noble savage").
Rebecca Cox2 said:It could be either, or neither. Would "that person" kill themselves if "she" accidentally had something happen to them? Or would they just keep going out of "habit" without actually wanting to find someone else (and if they live like that, nobody will even bother looking for "that person"—talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy)? Or would "that person" just steal whatever they need until they find someone whose company actually fits "them"?
It's probably just some mix of genetic/biological stuff (intelligence, being an introvert or extrovert, temperament...) and environmental factors (what you learned and picked up from society), you know? Heh, did I just say something super obvious there?... 🤣 🤔
Yeah, I just wanted to point out again how sketchy it is to try and pull "natural" stuff away from "social" stuff.
Rebecca Cox2 said:Poetry is basically just a subset of "real needs," specifically expressing your thoughts, feelings, and observations in a unique way, which is really just a way of recording your experiences and communicating with the world around you.
Whether you do that through poetry, music, scientific or philosophical papers, writing novels, or even just a diary—that's just a choice. But all of those are subsets of the need to keep the brain busy with some kind of activity, something left over from when we had to become "creative visionaries" just to survive (so now our brains are constantly hunting for "problems" to solve).
So, here's the big question: Is this just leftover stuff we do for fun, like some unnecessary extra... or maybe it's actually the very thing that defines us as humans, making it, in a sense, our most primal human need.
Rebecca Cox2, I honestly find it super weird that you're trying to define our modern needs by looking at how people lived ten thousand years ago—especially since we barely know anything about how they actually functioned. To me, it feels like a total cop-out to just push everything into this vague, blurry territory so we can say, "Oh, it's fine, no big deal."
And regarding this whole thing about biological vs. social needs... help me out here: "I need her! She's the only one for me, and without her, life isn't even worth living!" Is that nature? Is that society?
As far as I can tell, the only things that are actually, 100% essential are air, then water, food, and sleep. Anything else isn't strictly "necessary"—I mean, sure, if you strip everything else away, you're basically just existing, which makes you wonder what actually makes a human life feel human in the first place.
Personally, I think being able to create poetry is a primal human need, just as much as sex is. 🙂 Who's with me on that?
Honestly, this whole "primary vs. secondary" distinction is totally useless unless we actually agree on what the rules are.
I mean, picture this: at some point, someone just... "gets" it. They realize life is pointless, and suddenly they don't even care about eating or drinking, let alone finding love or hanging out with friends. It all just feels empty and unnecessary.
You’re calling it an anomaly—but that doesn't really explain anything. It’s just like when those folks at certain mega-churches start labeling things "natural" or "unnatural" without having any actual criteria. For them, "natural" just means whatever they happen to approve of.
Alright, I’m pulling your post to kick off this whole new thread.
People always love to draw this line between "primary" and "secondary" needs. Like, they say primary stuff is just breathing, water, food, shelter, sex, and whatever else... then everything else is just secondary. But honestly? That whole idea of what's "primary" is kind of a joke. There are endless examples of people treating a "secondary" need like it's life or death. Think about someone going on a hunger strike for a cause. Or that "it’s her or nobody" mindset in a relationship—if you can't have that one specific person, you'll pass on everyone else. If it were just some basic physical urge, people wouldn't be that intense about it. Even things like suicide over social shame... it doesn't fit that simple math. Sure, technically you need the basics covered to even care about the secondary stuff. Like, yeah, you gotta breathe and eat if you want to actually fight for your right to free speech. But the way we *feel*? It's totally different. Someone could feel like their freedom matters way more than a meal—and they might actually refuse to eat if they don't have that freedom.
Heidegger's whole deep dive into the difference between "ready-to-hand" and "present-at-hand" actually starts with how he totally branched off from his teacher, Husserl. For Husserl, basically everything we encounter in an experience is just an object for some consciousness—you know, for a subject. That whole line of thought follows Descartes and the rest of that modern philosophy era. But honestly, when Heidegger goes on his massive rant against Descartes, he's really taking aim at Husserl.
Heidegger’s take is that being "an object for some observing subject" is just one specific way to experience things, which he calls "present-at-hand." Like, look at this keyboard in front of me. Right now, it’s an object for my consciousness. But when I’m actually typing away? Most of the time, the keyboard isn't even an "object" I'm thinking about. In fact, while I'm typing, I'm usually totally oblivious to the keyboard itself. My mind is focused on the meaning of what I'm writing—and sure, that text might be an "object for my consciousness"—but the keyboard isn't. During the act of typing, I run into the keyboard in a completely different way. It’s not something sitting "in front" of me that I'm staring at; instead, it's "ready-to-hand." I'm using it without overthinking it, without "observing" it... it’s more like an extension of myself that I don't even have to worry about. It's only when the keyboard starts acting up—like if I hit the 'P' key and a 'Q' pops up instead—that it suddenly becomes an object of my observation. That's when I'm like, "Wait, what happened to this thing?" In that moment, the way the keyboard exists for me shifts. It stops being that seamless, ready-to-hand tool I don't think about and turns into a present-at-hand object I have to actually look at.
By using this "ready-to-hand" example, Heidegger is showing that the idea that "everything is just an object for some consciousness" is only one narrow slice of how we experience reality. It's the same deal with people, too. Usually, the people we meet aren't just "objects for our consciousness." We experience them much more directly. It’s only when we distance ourselves or create this weird, artificial gap that they start becoming "objects for our consciousness."
Yeah, but he doesn't care. He's just like, "Ugh, those are metaphysical questions." He's got his "own little system" that apparently "works," and honestly? He couldn't care less about the actual foundation behind it. His whole vibe is basically just, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
So, that whole endless split between "things-in-themselves" and "appearances" that Kant was so obsessed with? It feels like it almost always drags you toward one of two extremes.
One extreme is just tossing that "eternal X" factor out the window because it’s "meaningless." Like, if we can't know what it is, why bother? It’s basically nothing to us, right? So, people stop caring about actual truth—you know, things actually matching reality—and just focus on being consistent. We explain how things appear, but whether they're *actually* real? Who cares. That’s how you end up with stuff like positivism or pragmatism.
The other way is to do the exact opposite: throw out "appearances" as fake and claim the only real thing—the thing-in-itself—is totally unreachable. In that mindset, everything we see is just a lie, an illusion, or some kind of trick. And since humans can't grasp the true essence of things, all you've got left is faith if you want to find any kind of Truth.
Both paths pretty much make philosophy useless. They both go looking for answers somewhere else—the first group looks to science, and the second turns to religion. It leaves philosophy stuck in this weird limbo: how does infinite existence somehow merge into finite beings? How do finite beings transcend themselves into the infinite? How do we even begin to wrap our heads around how they’re both totally different and completely inseparable at the same time?
inepcija said:Plato basically argues that we need one super smart philosopher-king in charge. If he's the ruler, we're all just under his thumb, totally relying on his judgment. That basically makes us slaves... the Republic is essentially just preaching to "slaves."
He’s not arguing that. I mean, could someone PLEASE actually read the book before they start acting like experts on it? 🙄
Nah, Aristotle wasn't actually against slavery. Plato actually imagined his Polity without any slaves involved. Also—and this is just based on legend, since he doesn't explicitly write about it himself, so take it with a grain of salt—he was allegedly sold into slavery. Basically, he got an invite to Sicily to act as an advisor and philosophy teacher for the ruler there. Since Plato believed a just society could only work if a philosopher became a leader, or a leader became a philosopher, he went for it. Honestly, he knew it was a long shot, though, because this guy Dionysius—who wanted to be a philosopher—wasn't exactly known for having a great character. But hey, the chance to actually build a righteous society? Even if it seemed super unlikely, he couldn't just pass that up. Of course, things went south fast. Plato fell out of favor because he kept preaching about just leadership, which clearly wasn't what the ruler wanted to hear. So, the guy threw him in prison and eventually sold him into slavery. Some follower of Pythagoras ended up buying him and setting him free. Plato touches on this in his Seventh Letter, but he stays quiet about the whole slavery part, so that specific detail might be shaky.
As for what Aristotle thought... man, I honestly don't have an answer for you.
Since everyone on this thread decided that currants are somehow the ultimate philosophical mystery, I keep running into them in every philosophy book I pick up. Here’s another one, this time from Wittgenstein's leftovers (1948):
Currants might be the best part of a cake; but a bag of currants isn't any better than the cake itself. And even if someone hands you a whole bag of currants, they still haven't baked you a cake, let alone anything better.
And a cake? That definitely isn't just a bunch of watered-down currants.
David Miller15 said:Wait, can someone please just tell me who those guys are—you, Paar, and Schips?
Is Paar like Vladek or something?
And what about Schips?
😕
Yeah, they're both basically Vladeks. 😁 They're physicists who actually wrote the Physics 2 textbook for high school sophomores. The whole reason they're being brought up right now is because of some sophomore girl 😁 😉 in class, so that's why we're talking about them. Honestly, though, I feel like the comparison in the title pretty much explains itself... I'll let her handle the deep dive.
55:45 said:....Basically, going back to my main point—it shouldn't be that hard to wrap your head around the idea that animals are conscious. Just try applying that same logic to plants (which is tough, since there's no brain involved). There's no doubt we can call their way of living "behavior." Consciousness isn't just some human thing; honestly, that should be obvious by now.
There's that book, secret life of plants, which makes a really solid case using all these examples of how plants actually behave meaningfully. But look, I gotta say, I don't think binary logic—you know, that whole "either you're conscious or you're not, there's no middle ground" vibe—really works here. Again, I'm just speaking from what I know, because like I said, the only consciousness I have direct access to is my own. Everything else—whether it's other people, animals, plants, or even maybe some non-physical beings... I can only really guess at it indirectly. So, like I was saying, sometimes I experience this insane clarity where it's not just that what I'm looking at is clear, but the consciousness itself feels sharp, calm, alert, and totally focused. And other times, it's the opposite—not that I can't see what's in front of me, but my actual consciousness feels foggy, messy, and scattered. And sometimes, it's somewhere right in the middle... What I mean is, there's this whole spectrum of being more or less alert and focused... so I truly believe that any kind of oversimplification, like saying "humans are conscious but animals are just machines," is just that—oversimplification. Sure, maybe there's a grain of truth to it since humans clearly have a higher capacity for awareness than animals, but I definitely don't think an animal is just some mindless robot.
Yeah... while I was chatting with Lala, I was trying to figure out how to flip this last sentence into the first person, but it just felt clunky. Still, if I’d gone with ''...that I am a less authentic human being the less aware I am.'' would it have been too slow?
Look, I'm not really one for those "trolley problem" ethical dilemmas, but still... imagine you're stuck in a spot where you have to choose who lives, and you can only save one of two people... and one is in a coma with doctors saying there's zero chance of recovery... while the other is fully conscious and present...
Man, freedom. 🙂 It seems like when a person's awareness is narrowed—like when they're absolutely livid, or totally exhausted, or just wasted... they're less free. More awareness = more freedom.
Right, back to the "I" thing: we experience consciousness as our own. And personally, I know that when I'm more aware, I feel more alive, more real, better than when my mind is clouded. We don't get a direct look at anyone else's consciousness like we do our own; we can only guess. So, even if we buy into my idea that more awareness equals more value, trying to judge someone else's level of consciousness—and judging their worth based on that—is pretty sketchy business.