47 replies to this topic

[niggler]

Lazarus Long


Only the self can decide to be selfless or selfish.

Come on, Lazarus. How can the self be selfless?!

[quadclops]

Several here have posed the statement that wanting immortality might be considered selfish. Here is an online dictionary's definition of "selfish":

Selfish (Self"ish) (?), a.

1. Caring supremely or unduly for one's self; regarding one's own comfort, advantage, etc., in disregard, or at the expense, of those of others. "They judge of things according to their own private appetites and selfish passions." Cudworth. "In that throng of selfish hearts untrue." Keble.
2. (Ethics) Believing or teaching that the chief motives of human action are derived from gratifying one's own pleasure. "Hobbes and the selfish school of philosophers." Fleming.
3. Meanly covetous or avarcious in dealing with others; stingy.

Synonyms -- Avarcious; covetous; parsimonious; sparing; miserly; penurios; sordid; stingy. See Avaricious.

Sounds pretty harsh, huh? But, by wanting to live forever, whom am I harming? Future generations perhaps? Maybe I'll be selfishly taking up their space, using up their resources? But "future generations" don't exist yet. They're fictional people, and fictional people's rights should not supersede the rights of the people who are already here!

The only way that immortality could be selfish by the above definition, is if it involved some kind of vampirism on the already living.

We are not selfish for wanting immortality, merely practical. After all, what are our alternatives? [mellow]

[Lazarus Long]

niggelr asks:
Come on, Lazarus. How can the self be selfless?!

Come on niggler it is elementary, only the self can choose to relinquish it and thus be selfless, only the self can be selfless.

One must possess a "self" to be able to give it up and become "selfless".

Ask the Buddha

[niggler]

Lazarus Long

But selflessness implies no self. The self cannot contain the qualities of its own absence. Love is a state where the self is absent.

[Lazarus Long]

You are asserting a classic fallacy based largely on your own preference for what love "should" mean, at least in your mind. Love is a pairing, or merger that does not require the amelioration of the self at all, far from it as the members who are selfless also lose the ability to love.

Love is an appreciation of the "other" self that transcends "selfishness" as a motivation and this is about "mating" as well as "parenting" and perhaps even as "patriotism" or "devotion".

In fact I would counter that selfless love is an oxymoron and not possible because love is of the self for the other self and promotes the betterment and protection of the relationship and the members. Hence a protection and cherishing of their individuality.

http://education.yah...4/l0262400.html
love
PRONUNCIATION: AUDIO: lv
NOUN:
1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
3a. Sexual passion. b. Sexual intercourse. c. A love affair.
4. An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
5. A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
6. An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.
7a. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language. b. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
8. Love Mythology Eros or Cupid.
9. often Love Christianity Charity.
10. Sports A zero score in tennis.
VERB: Inflected forms: loved, lov·ing, loves

TRANSITIVE VERB: 1. To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward (a person): We love our parents. I love my friends.
2. To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward (a person).
3. To have an intense emotional attachment to: loves his house.
4a. To embrace or caress. b. To have sexual intercourse with.
5. To like or desire enthusiastically: loves swimming.
6. Theology To have charity for.
7. To thrive on; need: The cactus loves hot, dry air.
INTRANSITIVE VERB: To experience deep affection or intense desire for another.
IDIOMS: for love Out of compassion; with no thought for a reward: She volunteers at the hospital for love. for love or money Under any circumstances. Usually used in negative sentences: I would not do that for love or money. for the love of For the sake of; in consideration for: did it all for the love of praise. in love 1. Deeply or passionately enamored: a young couple in love.
2. Highly or immoderately fond: in love with Japanese painting; in love with the sound of her own voice. no love lost No affection; animosity: There's no love lost between them.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old English lufu. See leubh- in Appendix I.
SYNONYMS: love, affection, devotion, fondness, infatuation These nouns denote feelings of warm personal attachment or strong attraction to another person.
Love is the most intense: marrying for love.
Affection is a less ardent and more unvarying feeling of tender regard: parental affection.
Devotion is earnest, affectionate dedication and implies selflessness: teachers admired for their devotion to children.
Fondness is strong liking or affection: a fondness for small animals. Infatuation is foolish or extravagant attraction, often of short duration: lovers blinded to their differences by their mutual infatuation.

But selflessness implies no self. The self cannot contain the qualities of its own absence.

The implication you draw is false, it only "implies"a denial of self and it requires the self to make the denial thus a self is requisite for someone to be selfless.

The second assumption is more interesting but also likely false. I would like you to please offer evidence of why the self cannot contain "qualities" of its own absence?

I am simply saying that selflessness is a denial of all or a part of an aspect of "self" and this relationship does not fall prey to the restriction you impose. I am making a case that is a classic example of transcendental logic. I am not saying that the self must remain selfless but that it is a "transitional period" of selflessness in order to achieve growth.

The overcoming of the limitations of the self is defined by the model of the Phoenix, for Christians this is the rebirth, and all cultures possess this cognitive stage in one form or another. The destruction of the self is NOT necessarily a suicide or martyrdom, it is symbolic of passing through a quantum gap of "selflessness" in order to achieve a higher level of awareness.

http://education.yah...4/s0238400.html
selfless
SYLLABICATION: self·less
PRONUNCIATION: AUDIO: slfls KEY
ADJECTIVE: Having, exhibiting, or motivated by no concern for oneself; unselfish: “Volunteers need both selfish and selfless motives to sustain their interest” (Natalie de Combray).
OTHER FORMS: selfless·ly —ADVERB
selfless·ness —NOUN

[Lazarus Long]

I started posting specific definitions because i noticed that we were all debating assumed biases without these being rationally grounded in the restricted meanings of the words. We were debating what we WANTED things to mean more than what they actually mean.

So in fairness here is another word critical to this thread and to corroborate what Quadclops posted above. I suggest there is nothing about desiring immortality that inherently is selfish and I agree with Quadclops but I would go further and argue that altruism BECOMES selfish if it is the result of a collective of individuals imposing an EXPECTATION of sacrifice on a specific individual. It is the group which is behaving selfishly because we are granting it the characteristics of the individual.

Before you say only individuals can behave selfishly I suggest that is not so and corporate law is all about creating a condition in which groups can possess the rights and characteristics of individuals and cultures have been doing this all throughout human development as a form of tribalism.

Human sacrifice for example is an expression of the selfishness of the collective made as obligatory "altruism." Altruism becomes "selfish" when it becomes obligatory. It is not normally the case to apply these definitions of individual behavior to groups but they CAN be so applied and are used this way by religious institutions, States, Corporations, political parties, ethnic groups, tribes, clans and more.

http://education.yah...1/s0238100.html
selfish
SYLLABICATION: self·ish
PRONUNCIATION: AUDIO: slfsh
ADJECTIVE: 1. Concerned chiefly or only with oneself: “Selfish men were . . . trying to make capital for themselves out of the sacred cause of human rights” (Maria Weston Chapman).
2. Arising from, characterized by, or showing selfishness: a selfish whim.
OTHER FORMS: selfish·ly —ADVERB
selfish·ness —NOUN

[niggler]

Lazarus Long

It's all about what the self is. The self is just a lot of memories, which are the past. How can the past be capable of love? Love is always new.

[quadclops]

Lazarus Long:

. . . altruism BECOMES selfish if it is the result of a collective of individuals imposing an EXPECTATION of sacrifice on a specific individual. It is the group which is behaving selfishly because we are granting it the characteristics of the individual.

Kind of like society's almost demanding expectation that we should be willing to die to make way for future generations?

[Lazarus Long]

Kind of like society's almost demanding expectation that we should be willing to die to make way for future generations?

Yep, and all that goes with it like conscription, taxation without representation, tithing, and many more examples of the collective will being considered more important than the individuals it exploits; like manifest destiny.

[baal_zebul]

Kind of like society's almost demanding expectation that we should be willing to die to make way for future generations?

Anyone here who can say that they want to die in order to make way for the future generations? [lol]

[niggler]

"Anyone here who can say that they want to die in order to make way for the future generations? "

Dying physically won't help anybody, but dying to the ego would help everybody.

[shedon666]

from this supplied definition....

altruism: Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

i support altruism as being a positive method of mindset as long as it does not promote any destruction toward another. if it is not detriment to another process then it is not a hinderance to the self or any other; it is possible to not concern the welfare of others and be creative for the self. now in the case that this desire to please the self starts to cross borders and effect others lives negatively, that is where i think it would be a detriment to the altruismist, and of course others; negativity to all.

[MichaelAnissimov]

This seems slightly relevant to this thread:

http://www.accelerat...ks/altruism.htm

[bacopa]

"When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a
European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it
is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of
mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by
tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand
violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any
political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total
understanding of mankind."

Amen to this statement Krishnamurti was a very wise man to say the least, I of course echo these sentiments, freedom from labels, religion, race, in an effort to become one with mankind itself. I've been thinking of John Lennon's Imagine song recently, 'Imagine no religion it's easy if you try'...that should be a motto for imminst

Thought experiment: should a being whose decision process approximated a democratic consensus be considered "selfish"? I'm talking about a being whose decisions are actually made based on the consensus vote of some group, not because the group is telling the being how to behave, but because the being is built to approximate democratic opinions.

no! I agree that altruism at any level even that which reflects the belief system of a whole is unselfish as long as the net results are positive. Echoing a consensus vote is still altruism.

transhumans will be able to think and move at rates billions or trillions of times faster than us slow biological humans. Our bodies and minds move at a crawl in comparison to what is physically possible, a huge space of better designs. We just haven't had the intelligence or technology to reach out to that space just yet.

This should be reason enough to take the gamble on super intelligence. I would rather have the thought that there are super intelligent beings able to think billions and trillions of times as fast as me than not, but it would seem to be essential that we plant a moral seed AI as you have echoed before...

You can think of this as a sort of argument from one member of a council of say, 7 cybernetically enhanced humans, all with different ideas about morality, discussing how to approach the world after they realize they could probably have great influence over it if they wanted to. Would they be willing to make certain sacrifices, put aside their egos, in order to ensure that all the citizens of Earth could live in relative safety and peace for an indefinite length of time? If I were one of those special people, I sure would.

I agree with your emphasis on a strong morality sentiment, something needed to 'see this thing through' the right way minimizing the risk of error.

All the features of the world we find ourselves embedded in - human nature, terrestrial life, a reality made up of atoms, life, death, reproduction, etc - are roughly arbitrary. We don't know exactly why they're there and we didn't choose them. The situation was so confusing that for thousands of years we've had to pretend as if an unimaginably powerful old man created it all. (And many are still pretending.) People are designed (by evolution) to disturb and hurt each other simply by acting in their own best interests. That is a horrible system. We need to rearrange the system in such a way that people can act in their own best interests and nobody ever gets hurt or disturbed.

I agree, I would love to see altruism actually working in action, however until we achieve that I'll be waiting with bated breath!

The "I need to have more than everybody else" mentality is a direct result from evolving in a zero-sum environment with scarce resources, where someone else succeeding often means you and your genes losing.

It's soooo disturbing the way that seems to work out? I'm positive there is a better way and I'm sure we'll stumble upon it, this allocation and manic fight for resources reeks of primitivism and stupidity, hopefully higher intelligence will allow us to surpass this troubling little problem.

Biological evolution, basically, is evil. To carry the principles of evolution and selfishness with us over into a superintelligent society would be analogous to porting the minds of bacteria into an entire civilization of human beings, only to carry out bacterial goals and probably bite one another completely to death.

Again we seem to obviously agree, evolution does seem to be evil, hell it is evil who am I kidding? What a torturous existence we sometimes, ok...often live, I wouldn't be an advocate of imminst if I didn't agree with you that we can one day change this troubling paradox. This seems to be a running theme in our thoughts Michael.

Whether such intelligences are physically possible is still not entirely certain, but there is evidence that they very well could be. If they are, then such intelligences wouldn't change their philosophies due to sudden events, as humans sometimes do; they could be willingly "stuck" as altruists forever.

I pray to science that this happens, and yes Michael you are still my hero blame it on altruism that I'm agreeing to be sappy in my statements as of recently, or a deep respect for compassion!

Edited by dfowler, 04 May 2004 - 09:41 AM.

[kevin]

Link: http://www.eurekaler...--usp112404.php

---

Public release date: 24-Nov-2004
[ E-mail Article ]

Contact: Meg Sullivan
megs@college.ucla.edu
310-825-1046
University of California - Los Angeles

UCLA study points to evolutionary roots of altruism, moral outrage
If you've ever been tempted to drop a friend who tended to freeload, then you have experienced a key to one of the biggest mysteries facing social scientists, suggests a study by UCLA anthropologists.

"If the help and support of a community significantly affects the well-being of its members, then the threat of withdrawing that support can keep people in line and maintain social order," said Karthik Panchanathan, a UCLA graduate student whose study appears in Nature. "Our study offers an explanation of why people tend to contribute to the public good, like keeping the streets clean. Those who play by the rules and contribute to the public good will be included and outcompete freeloaders."

This finding -- at least in part -- may help explain the evolutionary roots of altruism and human anger in the face of uncooperative behavior, both of which have long puzzled economists and evolutionary biologists, he said.

"If you put two dogs together, and one dog does something inappropriate, the other dog doesn't care, so long as it doesn't get hurt," Panchanathan said. "It certainly wouldn't react with moralistic outrage. Likewise, it wouldn't experience elation if it saw one dog help out another dog. But humans are very different; we're the only animals that display these traits."

The study, which uses evolutionary game theory to model human behavior in small social groups, is the first to show that cooperation in the context of the public good can be sustained when freeloaders are punished through social exclusion, said co-author Robert Boyd, a UCLA professor of anthropology and fellow associate in UCLA's Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture.

"Up to this point, social scientists interested in the evolutionary roots of cooperative behavior have been hard-pressed to explain why any single individual would stick his neck out to punish those who fail to pull their weight in society," Boyd said. "But without individuals willing to mete out punishment, we have a hard time explaining how societies develop and sustain cooperative behavior. Our model shows that as long as it is socially permissible, withholding help from a deadbeat actually proves to be in an individual's self-interest."

With funding from the National Science Foundation, Panchanathan set out to recreate mathematically a small community in which people participate in a public good, such as an annual clearing of a mosquito-infested swamp, which takes time from their day but which saves the entire community time down the line because the work prevents them from getting sick. He assumed that individuals in the close-knit community frequently swap favors, like helping neighbors repair their homes after a storm. He also assumed that no single individual or agency was being paid to keep individuals in line. Community members had to do it themselves, much as our evolutionary ancestors would have done.

In his mathematical model, Panchanathan pitted three types of society members:


[*]"Cooperators," or people who always contribute to the public good and who always assist individual community members in the group with the favors that are asked of them.
[*]"Defectors," who never contribute to the public good nor assist other community members who ask for help.
[*]"Shunners," or hard-nosed types who contribute to the public good, but only lend aid to those individuals with a reputation for contributing to the public good and helping other good community members who ask for help. For members in bad standing, shunners withhold individual assistance.

During the course of the game, both cooperators and shunners helped to clear the swamp. The benefits from the mosquito-free swamp, however, flowed to the whole community, including defectors. When the researcher took only this behavior into account, the defectors come out on top because they enjoyed the same benefits the other types, but they paid no costs for the benefits.

But when it came to getting help in home repair, the defectors didn't always do so well. The cooperators helped anyone who asked, but the shunners were selective; they only help those with a reputation for clearing the swamp and helping good community members in home repair. By not helping defectors when they ask for help, shunners were able to save time and resources, thus improving their score. If the loss that defectors experienced from not being helped by shunners was greater than the cost they would have paid to clear the swamp, then defectors lost out.

After these social interactions went on for a period of time that might approximate a generation, individuals were allowed to reproduce based on accumulated scores, so that those with more "fitness points" had more children. Those children were assumed to have adopted their parents' strategy.

Eventually, Panchanathan found that communities end up with either all defectors or all shunners.

"Both of those end points represent 'evolutionarily stable equilibriums'; no matter how much time passes, the make-up of the population does not change," Panchanathan said.

In a community with just cooperators and defectors, defectors -- not surprisingly -- always won. Also when shunners were matched against cooperators, shunners won.

"The cooperators were too nice; they died out," Panchanathan said. "In order to survive, they had to be discriminate about the help they gave."

But when shunners were matched against defectors, the outcome was either shunners or defectors. The outcome depended on the initial frequency of shunners. If enough shunners were present at the beginning of the exercise, then shunners prevailed. Otherwise, defectors prevailed, potentially pointing to the precarious nature of cooperative society.

"We know that people pay their taxes and engage in all kinds of other cooperative behaviors in modern society because they're afraid they'll get punished," Panchanathan said. "The problem for the social scientist becomes how did the propensity to punish get started? Why do I get angry if someone doesn't contribute? Isn't it just better to say, 'It's their business,' and let everybody else in the group get angry? After all, punishing someone else will take time and energy away from activities that are more directly important to me and I may get hurt."

"By withdrawing my support from a freeloader, I benefit because every time I do something nice for someone, it costs me something," Panchanathan said. "By withdrawing that support, I'm spared the energy, time or whatever costs are entailed. I retain my contribution, but the deadbeat is punished."

In practice, however, cooperative societies hold defectors in line through a series of measures, Panchanathan said. "The first level is disapproval: you say, 'That wasn't cool' or you give a funny look," he said. "Then you withdraw social support. Finally, you lower the boom and either physically hurt the defector or run him out of town."

Ultimately, he admits, this model is "a very simple and crude approximation" of the real world. "For example, in my model, only defectors or shunners can persist. They cannot coexist," he said. "But we know that some people are generally cooperative, playing by society's rules, while others are not. This type of modeling doesn't explain everything. Instead, it boils down a complex social world and tries to understand one small piece. In this case, we found that cooperation can persist if people need to maintain a good reputation in their community."


###

---

Its interesting that fitness of the individual is tied to the individuals *behavior* as part of a social unit through the use of cooperation/altruism and punishment.

[intrigued]

True altruism would be letting someone you love go because she would be happier with someone else.

[hyoomen]

Without getting inexorably involved in this conversation (which seems to have mostly been finished with for a while), I'd highly recommend that anybody interested in studying the concepts of altruism, charity, morality, etc. take a brief moment to read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael series. In its concise exploration of human civilization and general understanding of human nature, it has irrevocably altered my perspective on the issues.

That having been said, I can find no logical basis for altruism (or morality), especially in an atheistic worldview. I do not particularly equate social cooperation with altruism.


PS: Sending food surplus to populations 'incapable' of locally sustaining themselves is likely to lead to atrocities manyfold over present circumstances. You can't rationally increase food supply to meet demand, because it increases demand.

[Infernity]

I am glad someone brought up that subject.
I tell you what I think:

EVERYTHING, including EVERYTHING that human does is selfish and for his own needs and survival! his own ONLY! absolute egoism!
Survival includes a mental mechanismof of less enemies - more chances to survive.
It expresses oneself in kindness, finding friends, "walking with the current", agreement with the accepted (and so peer pressure).
Controling over your company peers is a measure for poly-success, when you are the controling element - it is hard for other substances to survive, and everything accomplished according to your own needs, and you have to face less obstructions.
Impression - is something that takes place for your own self only, to make others see you as a one that cannot be grasped as an enemy, and thus to reduce the amount of your enemies.
Jealousness - a reaction owing to a loftier lever of survival by other; feeling more disadvantageous than the other because of his success, fearing that he shall cause be an obstacle, and you will survive less because of the fact that he found a way to control some element and so to make others see him as a fellow in that spesific department more than you and so he might inflame them against you- just beacuse he has found more sap means.
Self-sacrifice means - a way to acquire supporters (again - less enemies), keeping on self-respect, a way to demonstrate a reason for helping you survive, receiving homage from the surrounders.
Also loving someone is a selfish need because after all it has accomplished to minister the personal needs - for a matter of fact it is a way to thank for support and participation in that same track, self-satisfaction, the opposite of enemy, respecting him for well doing the same for you as you do for him... That is the reason that when one side breaks-up from the other side (because he saw him as a mismatch), then the dumped side see him as a betrayer, feels pain for the fact that someone succeeded to to make a fool of him; When the supporter vanishes it points also on a wrong decision, some weakness and weakness is a mishap in the survival...
Of course, loving someone is also for multiply - multiplication and survival are the most superior values of the organisms (upon the earth), multitude of the strong unit - everyone finds the one that seem to him to fit the most his own needs, so the next generation shall be synonymous to him and even better (will get the complement from the 'supporter' he has found).
There is more existing kind of survival - materially spiritual (physically platonic) [something like that], means, a man who's sacrifice his own life for someone else, he's actually doing it for himself! he shall do it to be remembered, to keep his respect, so his mentalism will be kept, or at least, mentally- that's the intention. That is owing to the unawareness of what "bestows" the death and the (mendacious) awareness of it is naturally, unavoidable and shall always be that way, so he won't lose to much (actually- he won't lose a thing, but he's just subconscious for so, the fact that he sacrificed his life for someone- proves the unawareness to the super huge loss that death "bestows". He thinks only about the present, lives the moment, "carpe diem" reputedly in Latin - and alas)!

Therefore, we all are egoistics if we want it or not. [thumb]

Yours truthfully
~Infernity
[lol]

Edited by infernity, 25 January 2005 - 10:57 AM.