  |
exton
Forum Elder
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 4218
|
 Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:15 am Post subject: |
 |
|
|
| Lester wrote: |
I would argue that everything that does make you happy is derived from the amount of power that you wield, whichever form that power might take. i.e. enjoying a beautiful spring morning for example, is only made possible by the fact that you do not have to be working at that particular time to keep yourself alive, hence the power that allows you free time allows you the chance to enjoy that spring morning. Not only this, but the power the morning has over you, to take you away from the humdrumness of regular life, is also part of the reason why you enjoy it so much.
|
You can certainly interpret it that way, but can you justify that interpretation? It seems like an unnecesary hypothesis to me; everything can be accounted for elegently and simply without trying to fit it into a paradigm of power.
| Quote: |
Who had the most resources when we were cavemen? The biggest, the strongest, the most powerful. Who had the most resources when we were hunter gatherer humans?? The biggest, the strongest, the most powerful.
|
Can you prove that?
| Quote: |
Money represents resources, but those that had the resources were those that were most powerful, in the beginning it was mostly about physical strength, but intellect and charisma become powerful as humans began to think more and more.
|
Power *can* lead to more money, but it doesn't always. Money always leads to greater power.
And, it's worth noting, the power that allows one to have other people give him resources is a different sort of power from the one that resources give to a person.
| Quote: |
Without the exchange of power there is no pleasure.
|
That's an arbitrary assertion for which you have provided no justification.
| Quote: |
Everyone thinks like that, they just don't realize it. Chocolate tastes good BECAUSE it is a luxury, chemistry is not the only thing that creates pleasure, people who have different personalities enjoy different foods, because their minds *make* the food taste good.
|
That's not the case. The physical nature of your tongue and olfactory senses is what determines how much you like a given food. That's not really a matter of debate; it's well-established.
Chocolate does not taste good because it is a luxury. Chocolate is actually very cheap (as someone else pointed out) and easy to acquire. Even if you were guarenteed a lifetime supply of chocolate, one that would never diminish, chocolate would still taste good. This is because the reasons that chocolate is so good are physical and chemical in nature.
Again, that's not really a matter of debate or interpretation. It's already been established to be the case.
| Quote: |
I would posit that all things you think are pleasurable go above and beyond your needs, and if they do not, then the pleasure is derived from your mind congratulating you on keeping your body alive.
|
I don't congradulate myself on being alive. In fact, i revisit my decision to live almost every day. I don't consider survival to be an accomplishment in any sense; i consider it to be a burden (although, a burden worth bearing).
And this hypothesis of yours is completely unsubstantiated; it covers all of the things that need explaining, but you've provided no reason to suppose that it's actually true.
| Quote: |
My original point was that everything that motivates people is really just about power. |
And you're wrong. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lester
Forum Elder
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: | | And this hypothesis of yours is completely unsubstantiated; it covers all of the things that need explaining, but you've provided no reason to suppose that it's actually true. |
I agree, it is purely hypothesis for the very reason that it is not proven, however, it is disprovable, so it remains valid as a theory, because if you could find one thing that motivated people beyond power, you would disprove the entire thing.
Like you say, it covers everything that needs explaining, and hence it is just as valid as say, evolution.
I also think that it is quite plausible because of it's simplicity. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CryxicKiller
Known Associate
Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 332
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
| joeyjock wrote: |
Now you're getting into semantics here...
what came first the chicken or the invasion of Moscow?...
You're actually going to say that the Norman conquests
the War of the Roses
The Seven years war of Central Europe
The Wars Btw Spain and England
Btw Spain and Holland
the Empire building wars of Venice
France Spain and Austro-Hungary on and on
did not themselves MAKE suffering and disease? |
Hu??? What?!?!!? You're saying that those wars created the diseases? That's certainly an odd interpretation of history. How do you explain the Black Death in the fourteenth century, which wiped out about 25% of Europe's population? Its spread and devastation had little to do with war. And how do you explain the thousands of other epidemics that struck all over the globe without the aid of human violence, epidemics that caused far more deaths than all putative religiously-inspired wars (and more deaths than all wars period)?
On the list that you gave: I'd urge you to brush up on your history. The primary motivations in some of those conflicts was not religion. The Seven Years War was a multi-faceted conflict whose main aim in Europe was the destruction of Prussia from the Allied perspective and the salvation of Prussia from the Prussian perspective. Religion was not important at all; France, Austria, and Russia were thinking more about how they would divy up Prussian territory rather than how they would satisfy god. The wars of Louis XIV were also more about aggrandizing France rather than displaying religious fervor. How was the Norman Conquest of England a religious war? You have to be joking right now. There was almost no trace of religious significance in that conflict; essentially, it involved two foreign rulers attempting to eliminate a decrepit Anglo-Saxon regime. In the end, it was William who succeeded in doing that. The other guy, Harald III of Norway, was not even Christian. The Wars of the Roses also did not feature much religious influence. They were just a series of English civil wars that came about as a result of dwindling royal power.
Now, you could respond that you made this list without reference to religious influence. In that case, the list is insignificant in light of what we are comparing. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
exton
Forum Elder
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 4218
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:25 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Lester wrote: |
I agree, it is purely hypothesis for the very reason that it is not proven, however, it is disprovable, so it remains valid as a theory, because if you could find one thing that motivated people beyond power, you would disprove the entire thing.
Like you say, it covers everything that needs explaining, and hence it is just as valid as say, evolution.
I also think that it is quite plausible because of it's simplicity. |
The difference is that evolution has supporting evidence - your hypothesis does not. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Amin
Not a Newbie
Joined: 22 Dec 2006
Posts: 85
Location: Texas
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
| there have been observations of apes going to war with each other |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lester
Forum Elder
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:27 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| exton wrote: | | Lester wrote: |
I agree, it is purely hypothesis for the very reason that it is not proven, however, it is disprovable, so it remains valid as a theory, because if you could find one thing that motivated people beyond power, you would disprove the entire thing.
Like you say, it covers everything that needs explaining, and hence it is just as valid as say, evolution.
I also think that it is quite plausible because of it's simplicity. |
The difference is that evolution has supporting evidence - your hypothesis does not. |
I would think that alpha males in cavemen times would be one such example of supporting evidence.
I would also think that the equality of genders atm due to the sexual revolution would be another example, i.e. as we move towards a smarter society physical power becomes less important and mental power is better appreciated/
Nietszche set out great amounts of evidence for his belief in the superman, which is in essence just a human who holds total power. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
exton
Forum Elder
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 4218
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:49 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Lester wrote: |
I would think that alpha males in cavemen times would be one such example of supporting evidence.
I would also think that the equality of genders atm due to the sexual revolution would be another example, i.e. as we move towards a smarter society physical power becomes less important and mental power is better appreciated |
Yep.
But that does not support the thesis that everything is reducible to power. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lester
Forum Elder
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 4:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Neither does the fossils found of evolving creatures support the thesis that *everything* is reducible to evolution. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
exton
Forum Elder
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 4218
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 4:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Lester wrote: | | Neither does the fossils found of evolving creatures support the thesis that *everything* is reducible to evolution. |
That's right.
It supports the thesis that evolution occurs (which is what the theory of evolution is about), not that everything involves evolution. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lester
Forum Elder
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 5:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
The theory of evolution is that evolution explains why animals are the way they are, explains ALL of why animals are the way they are.
I agree my theory is just that, a theory, but it has not been proven wrong yet, and so like evolution I can use it to answer other questions. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
exton
Forum Elder
Joined: 13 Dec 2006
Posts: 4218
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 5:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Lester wrote: | The theory of evolution is that evolution explains why animals are the way they are, explains ALL of why animals are the way they are.
I agree my theory is just that, a theory, but it has not been proven wrong yet, and so like evolution I can use it to answer other questions. |
The thing about fossils is that you can regress back to common origins; evolution follows logically.
That everything involves power does not follow logically from some things involving power. There's no connection. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lester
Forum Elder
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
| That everything we know involves power logically leads to everything involving logic, and will continue until there is something that does not involve power, if I was presented with such a thing I would discard the theory instantly. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
CryxicKiller
Known Associate
Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 332
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 5:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
First, let me quickly say to Lester, on account of his "theory," which was stated as follows:
"I would say that there are four things that motivate any person to do anything:
sex, money, power, and sex."
First, the "theory" is tautologous and unsatisfactory; sex has already been mentioned once. The theory uses four main components when only three are needed, violating Ockham's Razor quite blatantly. Second, the "theory" is uncultivated and poorly conceived, leaving much room for speculation. It has a mechanism, but a very hollow one. Third, whatever you may think of your "theory," it most certainly is not a scientific theory, and in that sense it is sharply different from natural selection (evolution IS NOT a theory; it is a natural process). Your descriptions of evolution are a bit humorous: what the processes behind evolution actually state or imply, quite briefly, is that over time shifts in allele frequencies are accompanied by genetic changes. That's pretty damn specific; I don't see anything like that in your "theory." Instantly created musings usually cannot be scientific theories, and this is especially true when you are talking about such a broad topic but offering so little to describe it. There's only a few peripheral features of your "theory" that can be castigated because, quite frankly, I'm not really sure what it states or how it works. It's one of those "can't criticize if you don't understand" moments. I'm not sure whether this was deliberate, intended to spark endless argument over something that is essentially meaningless, or whether you simply concocted a poor idea. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dirty Jersey
Newbie
Joined: 26 Dec 2006
Posts: 9
Location: New Jersey
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
[quote="Spider Jerusalem"]Stalin was an athiest.[quote]
You are on to something. I would say more people died in the twentieth century in the name of an athiest ideology, communism; World War II, the purges under Stalin in Russia, the Chinese civil war, the Chinese Great Leap Forward, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, etc. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Lester
Forum Elder
Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
Sorry if I was unclear, basically the theory is this,
"Power is the only human motivation"
Thats pretty specific.
The use of sex twice was meant to be humourous, if you notice, I didn't spend any extra time explaining the second 'sex' because it was irrelevant after I explained the first.
Cutting the entire motivation of the human species down to one thing is a pretty good example of occams razor I thought, because that was the end goal, and the actual theory of mine, that power is the only motivator.
Evolution is a theory in the sense that although it can never be fully proven, it can be unproven, evolution,as in natural selection, is that ALL shifts in allele changes are brought about by natural selection. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
|
|
|
