Quote:
Originally Posted by Luciano700
I mean everything existing or occurring
From laws to rules to regulations to norms to even laws of nature
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Short Answer: Depends on whether it's conscious or non-conscious matter. Even within conscious matter, it depends on the way it evolved, plus what the environment it's in conditioned it to be. Plus the extent or degree of its freedom of will.
Longer version:
Laws, rules, regulations, norms -- The purpose for these types of restrictions is to prevent hurt, harm, or degradation of others - in theory if not totally in practice. Conditions change over time, far too many types to list here. When conditions change, that often means the reasons for some laws, rules, regulations, or norms no longer exist; therefore those social admonitions based on those reasons/conditions lose their usefulness or other kind of value.
Example 1: Pre-birth control, it probably was appropriate to say "No sex before marriage". But when better birth control and anti-STD treatments came along (especially and even more so The Pill), the reasons for discouraging premarital sex ceased to exist.
Example 2: Shooting soldiers for cowardice in battle during in WW1. Back when we lacked today's knowledge of psychology, it did make a kind of "counterfeit sense" to shoot such soldiers; assuming that this would motivate soldiers to stay and fight, not endangering their unit. "counterfeit sense" meaning it seemed true to conventional wisdom based on that time's knowledge, even though it was actually wrong all along despite conventional wisdom's claim to the contrary.
Today, we know that PTSD is an objectively-observed reaction of the mind when placed under devastating stress - even ones well short of armed combat. Thus, the reason for scorning PTSD also no longer exists. Similar stories go for putting dunce caps on students, punishing harshly ADD students, higher-functioning autism (formerly Asperger's Syndrome), and increasingly poor mental competence in other important areas of social or cognitive functioning even when still adequate or even high-performing in other areas - even the condition is well short of obvious "Aspergers".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luciano700
Does having a reason for everything make things less interesting? Or does everything need to have an arbitrary reason? Should we just accept some things occur or exists for no arbitrary reason other than for the sake of doing so?
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For the deepest, most basic laws of chemistry and physics, it's highly likely we do have to accept it exists for an arbitrary reason. As for making life more boring and/or less interesting, not necessarily. Even if we can explain everything, there's still so many possibilities that can happen that it's more than enough to keep the mind occupied - if you make an effort to explore other areas that are outside your typical life experiences so far. Speaking of possibilities, this leads to the next quote.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by cebuan
1. Because it has survival value.
2. Follow the money.
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That's very well true, but simplistic for humans. Surviving just for the sake of surviving may be something chimpanzees and lower general intelligence animals do, but that's not adequate for a human being. Look no further than suicides in humans. Humans will end their own lives if the quality of life is too unbearable - meaning almost all (if not all) humans. For this reason, I moved away from believing in survival for its own sake and to survival for a purpose. Long story, but suffice to say that,
(1) Pleasurable life isn't a reason to value survival, for people can have tremendously good lives for themselves and others, yet commit outrageous acts against still others,
(2)
Sufficiently high misery is a reasonable basis for ending one's life if there is no realistic hope for a reduction in badness or compensatory goodness, again,
for others as much as one's self,
(3) From 1 and 2, it seems that at the
very least, we should not add badness to other's lives especially that is pointless, avoidable, excessively punitive, and insufficiently compensatory. Better yet, we should act to reduce overall badness in others and ourselves.
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