pig

kitsune

as a follow up on gilda, might i suggest that if you want to get some conversation rolling on that outburst up there, you might try distilling it down into some smaller tractable ideas? from my reading, some of it looks like it boils down essentially to relativist philosophical point of view, and I would have to say that I will ardently disagree with those types of notions. Everything is not the same, although everything is a part of the same experience of life we call reality, etc. I picked out a few points I found interesting below.


I would agree that there is an instinctual basis in emotions, and that emotions have instinctual components. I'm not sure that you can actually prove a reductionist argument that emotions are nothing but instincts, without a separate identity of their own.


I disagree with this. Details have changed, situations are more or less the same. We have undergone specialization - just like we became traders which encouraged the bartering system. We have specialized which encouraged capitalism. Or did it go the other way - did economics drive lifestyle choices? Did they happen simultaneously?


I don't think you can prove a directly identical relationship between modern love and olden lust. To say that love did not exist prior to this unspecific semantic shift you are talking about will be difficult to prove.


pain may come from sorrow, but it is not the only place pain comes from. If I understand this statement, then I would suggest a mild rephrase. I don't want to enjoy pain or sorrow. That's why they are pain and sorrow - I have other names for experiences that I enjoy, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. Yes, they may arbitrary, but they are useful for conveying your ideas / situation to other people. This switch you are attempting essentially boils down to relativist view points / nihilism, if I understand you properly, and I personally find such a view point to be a waste of time. No offense, I just don't see how living one's life under the constant premise that everything is exactly the same leads to a basis on which to make judgements, which lead to a basis to make decisions, which leads to life. I would suggest that overwhelming pain comes from a failure to accept reality, in the case where sorrow is your current reality. If one accepts, one can transcend.

Have you ever looked into Zen philosophy?

edit: kitsune I hope you take my comments the way I intended. I hope I did not sound rude in my replies - some of your post I agree with, if I allow myself some levity in interpretation. Recognition that everything is part of a larger context of reality is a very powerful recognition; however I feel that using that vantage point to try to reduce all the details to be the same is not correct. We have developed separate words for specific reasons - primarily because these distinctions are useful. I also think that because you can reduce system X to its components, it does not mean that system X does not exist. This process can be carried out in any spectrum of thought.

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