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Originally posted by Kyo
People create art so they can sell it, or (more likely) because they enjoy creating it. I haven't met an artist that didn't like what they do.
I don't believe it is an oversimplification - people tend to do what makes them feel good. Even self-sacrifice makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside because they know they did the 'noble' thing. Nobody likes pain (anybody who derives pleasure from pain is feeling pleasure, not pain). People will do what it takes to avoid it. The shot is a case of foresight - some pain now to protect against more pain in the future.
And of course, all beings tend towards self preservation.
Biologically speaking, however, there are many inconsisten human behaviors. Laughter, for instance, serves no biological purpose - animals don't laugh. Why are things 'funny'? What could this trait have evolved from? Love, also, is not biologically intuitive.
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A sense of humour is the one thing that I have yet to figure out. I was going to create a thread discussing it. I have a number of disconnected conjectures about it, my main falling point is finding a "unified" understanding....we percieve humour as something singular.
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Maternal love, yes, but sexual love is not.
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Sexual love is biologically intuitive. Given the difficulty of attracting a mate, its makes sense that you do your very best to keep that mate.
1. You will protect that mate, and ensure that no harm comes to that mate.
2. You will ensure that your mate knows your feelings, by showing affection. Otherwise you run the risk of your mate becoming bored, and leaving you.
3. You want to ensure your mate persists in believing that you would make a good parent, by showing your caring side.
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Reproduction is more efficient and effective if the two parties are not emotionally attached to each other.
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Where did you get that idea from?
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In today's society, biologically sound reasoning would be for women to look for the richest, most able-bodied men - not the men with the greatest smile or personalities.
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"in today's society" is the important thing to bear in mind. Modern Society has only been around in a blink of an eye in geological time.
So most of our instincts are directly inherreted from our "natural" times.
Further more i believe that most our our inherrited instincts do in fact translate very well into modern society.
The simple fact of the matter is that rich men do in fact tend to "look" more attractive than paupers.
Sociological experiments have proven this. a group of women were asked to take part in an experiment. They we sat at a table outside a cafe/restaurant. They had to comment on the attractiveness of everyman that walked into the place. They we're to only comment about his physical looks, not say his fashion sense, or anything like that.
Men turned up, and were rated accordingly. Two notable apperances were:
A man who turned up in a very old battered car, wearing reasonably cheap clothes. He was of course rated as frighfully ugly.
Later on in the day, a man arrived in a very expensive looking car, and got out, wearing a designer suit. This man was seen as incredibly sexy.
Of course, you've guessed it, they were in fact the same man.
Our perception of "sucess" gets projected onto the physical appearance of the person.
The other factor of what makes someone appear attractive is how fit a parent they would make.
In all cases, health is one of the main things which makes a person appear attractive.
In the case of women, they also want to see their man as being strong and athletic. They want a hunter-gatherer who will be able to provide for the familty, and protect them.
Men want a curvy figure, as that it a sign of sexual maturity.
(Now in modern society our perception of sexyness has been perhaps distorted by the media. This is debatable. We have other threads for that, but my belief is that yes they have, to an extent, but it is hard to tell exactly how much)
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Caring for the elderly and the terminally ill are also counter-intuitive. It is a waste of resources, and in the case of the ill, a weakening of the gene pool. The more sick and weak people we keep alive, the weaker the human race is on the whole.
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Caring for the elderly is somethign we have only had to do in modern society. Before this, in almost all cases, people died long before they would have been considered elderly, and hence useless.
It is a moral decision on our part to look after the elderly. But to be honest with you, "caring for the elderly" is hardly the number one priority of the vast number of people int he world. Stick 'em in a home, and keep 'em quiet, seems to be the more common attitude.
Further more, individuals don't care about the human race as a whole. They care about themselves.
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There is a lot that doesn't make sense in a purely biological sense, which makes many wonder how these behaviors evolved in the first place.
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Admitedly it is often hard to detangle the complex web of factors that cause these traits to evolve, but that doesn't make me doubt in any way, that these traits did in fact evolve.
Bear in mind, that we still have an appendix, despite the fact that it serves no useful purpose. Its purpose has been lost in the sands of evolutionary time.
Further more, I am not a "Social Evolutionist", though I am sure that it may seem that I am. I am stating that evolutionary survivability is the
root cause of emotions, not the single only factor that must be taken into consideration, as some people seem to believe. In other words, while i believe "nature" plays a crucial role in forming us, I don't see that we should ignore "nuture".