Suppose for a minute that the world, and individual people, had no significant problems. No famine, no recessions, no armed conflicts, no racism, no drunk driving.
Who would be out of business if these big problems were solved?
The world economy would collapse.
And
And the human race wouldn't be human any more.
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Reality, like time, is relative to the observer
Anthony North
Ants
So you think we would just be bigger and better ants? yes it's a thought. But probably just bigger.
Of course what I have in mind is that the very people who are in the business of fixing these problems have an invested interest in that the problems they are fixing do not get fixed.
What that grammatically correct ? It sounds a little painful :)
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If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.
(Bill Clinton, and perhaps others)
If
The individuals had such consciousness that those problems had been eliminated as a result, effectively changing the civilization, there would most likely be no need to talk about an economy like the one used to support beings that have no choice but to be at the mercy of those problems.
The only kind of economy you could think of then would be based on information, not on a money market, and not even on an energy market.
Such a people would have come to terms with concepts behind the domination of the individuals by systems, which create those problems for the benefit of systems. Those systems would then automatically be eradicated.
Those systems' sole reason for existing is the individual's powerlessness in front of a certain level of adversity, beyond which he submits for security, be it psychological or material.
I don't know
Was H.G. Wells right? If man had solved all his problems, would he let his mind stagnate to become childish Eloi?
Actually, a more tongue-in-cheek approach to that kind of dystopia was Mike Judge's Idiocracy, which I watched last Sunday night and thought it was hilarous although slightly scary in how possible it seemed :-)
I'd like to think that somehow we could evolve to become a society that woudln't care only about the material properties. A new world where all our current problems and worries would be a laughing matter to our descendants, that would be free to explore all the possibilities this Universe provides.
I don't know how that world would be like. They say all big changes are like death: you can theorize all you want but you really don't know what's on the other side until you step through the threshold.
But I just finished reading the latest novel by Whitley Strieber, and I liked th ending because it gave a glimpse of what kind of world we could have if humanity would just wake up. It would be a return of Eden of some sort, leaving all our cultural baggage but keeping the things that matter.
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
Passion, etc
The problem with all this is that if we got things perfect, where would be the passion? So often it is passion that creates the bad, but also generates the good works, the art, our existence in the abstract.
Similarly, if we got rid of the bad, how would we know if we were being good? Wouldn't it leave an amoral society?
Similarly, if things were perfect, we wouldn't get frustrated. And if we weren't frustrated, would we have the urge to advance, to change? And if not, does lack of advancement equal stagnation?
I'm fanatical about moderation, if you didn't know. And it seems to me that Earthling is posing a question about the exact opposite of now. So philosophically, if we're in an extreme world today, then what would appear to be moderation personified becomes a fanaticism.
By the way, Red, if I remember correctly Wells once visited an experiemental utopian experiment. His conclusion?
Boring.
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I'm fanatical about moder ... (damn, already said that)
Reality, like time, is relative to the observer
Anthony North
Well, we shouldn't worry
I don't think that as a species we humans can attain perfection, It's such a...well... perfect concept, don't you think? :-)
Nah, mankind will never be perfect. But we can damn well try, and what I would like is that the new generations be free to solve fresh new problems, instead of the old boring ones, like famine, unemployemnt, uneducation and diseases.
I don't think we could get bored. The Universe is quite a big playground after all. Plenty to do I reckon :-)
I understand that needs and dissatisfaction are the big triggers of change. But maybe... just MAYBE, plain curiosity is more than enough to fill their place.
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
passion
Personally, I'd go for a happy medium between utopia and the current distopia.
Without the current overwhelming amount of stress, I think people would be more creative, not to mention healthier, happier, and quite possibly wiser, since they'd have more time to ponder all sorts of things.
Kat
Curiosity and health
Good morning everyone,
As I've said before, Red, I'd class the human race as Homo Curious. And curiosity should be enough. But I've also argued that our curiosity is held in limbo at the moment because of a trivia-based society that seems to cater for our frustrations, etc. Hence, just maybe, frustrations are what are needed to spark the curiosity.
Speaking for myself, Kat, I find it interesting that, as a chronic fatigue sufferer, my writing/research, etc, came because of the ill health. Before I contracted the condition I was a brain-dead, hard working, hard playing corporate/military zombie with hardly a thought in my head.
I'm not sure whether this supports your argument or not. I suppose it depends how you look at it.
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I'm fanatical about moderation
Anthony North
Stress and creativity
I would agree with you Kat but only for a number of individuals.
Man, generally speaking, would prefer not having to do anything within a material medium, consciously or not.
This medium is far too crude and most especially within this experimental condition, creativity is far too limited to be real and ends up being replaced by inventiveness to palliate to unwell conditions.
Technically, what people want is to be rid of stress, to be rid of tension, to live a certain peace of mind. On the other hand, they seek what they evaluate as positive tensions which drives them into the trap of a negative tension system.
So, if I want that nice new widget I just saw on my nice gigantic tv set, I cannot afford to loose my job otherwise I will live the frustration of not having.
This civilization is very much driven by the form, the mind in matter being magnetized by it since the world of matter is a world of forms. And we have brought this civilization to a high level of aesthetic of the form, making it even more tempting. It ends up being a catch 22. You desire the form, you want that big car, you will work for it.
But all this is all fine, it acts as support and balance for civilization as we know it. On the other hand, we are not talking so much about creativity since the driving force is only a system of sticks and carrots and not a radiating projection of consciousness from a center that is, technically, a source of creation.
Passion
I would not say that passion is a universal reality.
We are fond of passion because we enjoy tensions in our nervous system.
Could you consider that passion, together with all the stimuli that is supported by an animal body is directly involved in what was called the fall of man? That these exciting stimuli that we are enamored with are not the solution but the base of the problem?
I know it may not be so obvious to consider this and I am not suggesting anyone to try and live without those. But it is possible to observe how passions, emotionally driven impulses have been at the source of all human driven catastrophies and that the cultured intellect was quick to rationalize the process as 'natural'.
Passion does not drive changes but drives the reaching for desires. If you observe this process carefully, you should see that these human factors that philosophy has put on a silver plate as the mark of 'superior' over nature in some instances has been nothing else than those very factor that keep humanity within the confines of intelligent animals.
Nothing to be proud of, really, even though many would want to convince people that this is just what they are: characters that descended from a tree rather than descended from their own perfection.
What makes things seem boring is the lack of electrification of the nervous system that makes us seek strong emotions, generally positive emotions amongst the generally well balanced people.
This to me means that we are enamored with the animality of this material body and forgot that this is this love of the soul for this type of experience that was at the source of its loss of real consciousness.
And what we see in this civilization is the obvious result of the progressive advancement towards the fulfillment of those requirements for a life ripe with positively charged emotional energy, which in turn requires to vampirize the environment.
The execution of those passions, especially those passions based on possession, have invariably led to the exploitation of our brothers. It was always at the cost of negatively charged emotional energies for those who lost in the trade.
There is no love in passion, passion is self-fulfilling emotionally and not universal.
So, as much as I agree that things would be boring in the current state of consciousness, as much is this condition the reason why this prison cannot be escaped.
Mmmm
I agree that passions are at the core of all human-driven catastrophies, in the sense that most of us do not know how to handle them properly. Even the most rational of men can be victims of childish tantrums (exhibit a: our old friend Ricky Dawkins).
But it is interesting to note that, if our current civilization has been formed upon our passions and our seeking to fulfill our (material) desires, the end result seems to be a nihilistic apathy, followed by depression and unhappiness. I suppose entire civilizations act as individuals, and just as addicts need to increase their dose of drugs to get their high, our current civilizaton is in a constant struggle to find new pleasures in a vicious hedonistic circle; which in many cases brings about emotional break-down, ironically (look what happened to young promising actor Heath Ledger)
I'm a designer, and there's a definition of "comfort" that I like very much: comfort is lack of awareness. The most comfortable shoes are the ones your senses are not aware that you're wearing, the most comfortable seat is the one you can spend hours on without even realizing it.
I think it is the same thing with happiness, but most people do not realize it.
So I don't think of an utopia where people will always have a happy grin on their faces, where they will always eat their favorite foods and all will drive Mercedes. I think of an utopia where people will realize that the most important thing is being kind to each other; where they will still go to work each morning but being fully aware of why they are doing it, where there will still be problems to solve and things to discover, but we will not be overcome by our worries and will learn to subdue our fears.
A future where people will find happiness without constantly looking for it.
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
There you go.
If someone is looking for happiness, he is obviously looking for something he does not have, and once he has it, he fears loosing it, and looks for ways to protect it and so on. Still what will have been found, happiness, will only be a relative condition.
If you always were at the same level of happiness, if I may say it that way, you would find that it becomes non-happiness, although not unhappiness. Then you seek a stronger dose, emotionally driven of course, because happiness is a comparative value relative to highs and lows.
What people desire is happiness, because it is an relative injection of electrification of the nervous system, which is tuned to the animality of consciousness.
What people need is peace, the suspension of fear and the suspension of tensions.
The end result is dramatically different, but it is not desirable. People don't seek their needs, they consider this boring. What they do seek is the excitation of their animal magnetism over their mind, rationalized by the higher capabilities of the intellect, to fulfill a pleasure that the soul seeks and that makes it willing to incarnate.
It would otherwise not bother anymore than the incarnate could sustain the neutralization of his animal cravings. After all, besides that pleasure, what is so freakin interesting down here, cut off from our reality and obligated to slave within a petri dish?
So, man is confronted to the infernal wheel Red just described.
There is a lot to say to explain why man can't know himself. Primarily, he seeks answers that are already conform to his understanding. And that understanding becomes the barrier between him and his reality, as it proceeds from the very trap that forced him deeper and deeper into matter.
All the laws of civilization on this planet are the reflection of this individual captivity in the golden cage of emotions and passions. And the economy is obviously driven by those same forces.
So, if the individual changed, it could not look like anything he imagines and so would his civilization be changed in the blink of an eye and it too would not look like anything he imagines.
What we imagine is already part of us, so becoming what we imagine is not changing, it is just following the track that has already been laid there for us.
oh dear
I thought we were using the word 'passion' in the sense of creative enthusiasm. But you guys have morphed it into personal desire -- which is an entirely different animal.
;)
How do you find them different Kat?
Creative enthusiasm is still driven by emotional charges, but is also supportive of intellectual functions.
People have passions for various goals. The driving force remains, may be more refined in some than in others, but it still travels the same path through the nervous system.
Not all souls have the same experience.
Is it not the goal of a passion rather than the mechanisms behind passion that differ the most?