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I mean, everything we would consider instincts can be overridden.
Suicide defies not wanting to die.
Lot's of people put themselves in pain for entertainment or for fun like those electrocution devices at joke shops, kids cutting themselves, tattoos, etc.
We can starve ourselves, walk on hot coal for kicks, do dangerous things, etc.
We are a very weak species that needs to be taken care of for a long period of time before we can take care of ourselves.
The only "Instincts" we seem to have retained, is that to suckle when we are born, that appears to be the only thing that we don't have to be trained to do in life....
'Course my brother is in the late forties and is still close to the tit....
Of course humans have instincts. But our intelligence and self-reflection can cause us to act against these insticts. Animals do not have the same level of intelligence and self-refllection as humans, so they act much more in tune with their instincts.
And modern people are more out of touch with their insticts because they are living much more through thier logical awareness in a fast paced world that requires higher intellectual demands.
Humans have at least a few instincts -- sucking, for one. A brand new infant knows how to do this (unless of course there is something wrong with them).
An infant also knows to try to avoid pain -- it will pull away from an uncomfortable sensation. This is the instinct to protect the body from damage.
There are several instincts that humans possess. Your "I think I can fly" statement however is completely unrelated to instincts. Instincts aren't a matter of wishing something, or mistakenly thinking you can do something, or being able to perform an unreal act just because you say you can.
Humans have at least a few instincts -- sucking, for one. A brand new infant knows how to do this (unless of course there is something wrong with them).
An infant also knows to try to avoid pain -- it will pull away from an uncomfortable sensation. This is the instinct to protect the body from damage.
There are several instincts that humans possess. Your "I think I can fly" statement however is completely unrelated to instincts. Instincts aren't a matter of wishing something, or mistakenly thinking you can do something, or being able to perform an unreal act just because you say you can.
"I think I can fly" was an example of how typing out a sentence does nothing without explaining what the sentence means... in response to some idiot poster.
It had nothing to do with anything. Which was the point.
And weren't the original things I posted DANGER? Are we not supposed to instinctively avoid DANGER? So when we do all those things I mentioned we are not avoiding DANGER.
I don't believe animals operate on instinct, I believe they operate based on reasoning that we simply do not understand as we cannot effectively communicate with them.
My cat doesn't jump from every noise he hears. If I am in the house and clap my hands together as he looks at me, he doesn't jump and run away, he just casually looks at me and then plops his head back down wherever he was. However, if a huge noise occurs outside he often will run. He is using reasoning to differentiate between the non-threatening noise (noise coming from me, his trusted owner), and the potentially threatening noise (noise coming from an unknown source outside).
Everything with a brain operates based on reasoning, some people simply have a very poor ability to reason. When it comes to animals, sometimes they assess a situation the wrong way (a shark sees a surfer dangling his limbs over a board and it reasons, wrongly, "that looks a lot like a seal, this is a meal for me to eat" and it attacks) and trouble results. It's not due to instict, the Great White Shark doesn't simply attack everything it sees, nor does it tend to attack people who are simply standing in three feet of water. It reasons to find its meals, most attacks on people are the result of errors in reasoning.
you seem to be confusing reflexes and instincts. instincts don't necessarily have to dictate every action all of the time. they are also not completely free from override by our reasoning, despite what *some sociologists* say.
to say otherwise is to negate the definition of the word instinct, and to necessitate new labels, definitions, and parameters that amount to roughly the same thing that we have now.
you seem to be confusing reflexes and instincts. instincts don't necessarily have to dictate every action all of the time. they are also not completely free from override by our reasoning, despite what *some sociologists* say.
to say otherwise is to negate the definition of the word instinct, and to necessitate new labels, definitions, and parameters that amount to roughly the same thing that we have now.
I've read Socrates/Plato and do not believe that instincts exist. Everything is based on reasoning, with some reasoning being sound and other reasoning being unsound. Instinct is simply a word invented to explain observations that people would otherwise have a difficult time explaining, or that would require them to admit that animals are not just brute creatures without the power to reason.
I think sleeping is instinctive with humans. We can delay it, but we can't avoid it. It doesn't have to be learned; it just happens.
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