BombermanBoard

chris_h · #65 Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:28 pm

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Oh really, Leibniz? You think everything is as it should be?

Sort of, but I suspect that we are using different definitions of "natural". I had forgotten that so many existed: 15 at m-w.com.

From m-w.com: "based on an inherent sense of right and wrong <natural justice> " That is probably what you meant.

I meant the following:

"8 a: occurring in conformity with the ordinary course of nature : not marvelous or supernatural <natural causes>"

"12 a: having a physical or real existence as contrasted with one that is spiritual, intellectual, or fictitious"

"2 a: being in accordance with or determined by nature b: having or constituting a classification based on features existing in nature"

"7: having a specified character by nature <a natural athlete>"

"5: implanted or being as if implanted by nature : seemingly inborn <a natural talent for art>"

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You're fooling yourself if you think humanity is like an ant colony. An ant colony is full of identical workers, working for the common good. We are so very divided, working mostly for ourselves.

Have you studied microeconomics? If not, you should definitely read an introductory book. Essentially, apparently selfish behavior is most often actually beneficial for the whole.

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Ah, but for the most part, these "instincts" come about because of outside forces, not because people were born with them. Fears, for example. Infants have only the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Yet so many adults have arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. They are not naturally afraid of spiders. Something caused them to be afraid of them. Men and women are basically only different physically, even sexuality strays as we can see with homosexuals.

You see the differences rather than the great similarities. All fear is an iteration of the instinct to protect oneself. All sexuality is an iteration of the instinct to reproduce.

Your claim that men and women differ only physically is contrary to science:
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-homens.html
http://www.sfu.ca/~dkimura/articles/sex.htm

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You make a bold statement there. You think you understand reality better than I do? Honestly? I've spent the better part of a year discovering reality. You don't know what I've gone through. You don't know what I've learned. And you think I'm in love with some hope or thought? Why do you think that? I am in love with individuals, not some big idea of what we are. If anything, it is you who is in love with an idea.

A year is a very short period of time.

I say that you love a hope because you find most relationships unsatisfactory rather than appreciating their beauty - the beauty of that which is, rather than the beauty of that which you would like to be.

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Well, I guess we ought to just rob, rape, and murder everyone else for our own gain, or better yet why don't we steal from ourselves, rape ourselves, and then murder ourselves because, after all, there are a lot of suicides these days, and suicide should be as natural as everything else, even though self-preservation is supposedly a human instinct, which is also natural.

Have you yet to discover the beauty of pain and suffering? Have you experienced how the contrast of pain and pleasure give meaning to both? Do you see how empty a life devoid of pain, setbacks, suffering, and challenges would be?

Yes, suicide and rape are natural. Everything is natural. One must be content with the present and past; we cannot change these. Work toward making the future as close to the future which we instinctually desire, but realize that our instinctual desire exceeds our capacity for change. Do your best to limit your conscious desire to the attainable, and then do your best to attain these things.