The Origin of evil

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Spectrum
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Spectrum »

Socrateaze wrote:
Note improvements can only be achieved when there is a quantum increase in the neural and psychological states of humans, .e.g. average IQ, Emotional Intelligence [EQ], Spiritual intelligence [SQ], Moral Quotient, and various other psychological measurements.
Sorry, haven't figured out this quoting yet.

You make it sound like you want to completely pacify the human race. I seriously doubt that we will change human impulses in 75 to 100 years, seeing that, like you say, it's in our DNA. You are imagining a complete overhaul of the human mind, reminds me of a movie I once saw where the human race were so hopelessly docile that they had to take someone out of stasis when a real criminal arrived on the scene. Then they found the underground, the humans that refused to bend to the new order of not killing animals for food. The guy served him a rat burger, which was all that they could get their hands on in this wonderfully new improved world.
Your use of docile is rhetorically misleading. It is not exactly 'pacify' but rather act intelligently, rationally, empathically and wisely with a high degree of modulation and mindfulness of the purpose and consequences of what one is doing.

I have quoted Aristotle on the deliberateness of right actions [not being subservient to anyone or one's emotions];
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quot ... 32211.html
Your movie example do not express what % of the World is acting intelligently, rationally and wisely. If the whole human race has a high degree of intelligence and wisdom, there is no way ONE criminal [like Hitler] can take advantage of the majority in the future conditions I have proposed.
I seriously doubt that we will change human impulses in 75 to 100 years,
Morally and ethically there had been quantum changes in the average morality [natural or imposed] and ethics within humanity.
> 100 years ago, hard core slavery was prevalent throughout the World but at present slavery is banned [imposed] by all Nations in the World. In practice there are still some form of 'slavery' going on illegally but attitudes are changing with peer pressure from the majority.
In the past [>100 years] slavery, racism, misogyny and many evil acts were accepted as a norm and not many were voicing or could voice out their views freely. But the trend of improvements has been going on since >100 years ago to now.

The above trend of improvement support my views that greater improvements can be made and expedited with Science and technology [btw with fool proof and no side-effect methods].

One fact is the emergence of mirror neurons [generate empathy and compassion] in the brains of primates and more in humans. This is a trend in evolution and there is a growth of mirror neurons in the average human being in time.
Another point of pessimism is the trend of advancement knowledge is very exponential, thus the potential to have exponential increase in the positive values [morals and ethics] we are looking for.

What I am proposing will not be done blindly and stupidly but rather with higher intelligence, wisdom, rationality, etc. in our positive mental faculties.
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Socrateaze
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Socrateaze »

Greta wrote:I see "badness" as unwanted entropy applied to us and "evil" as unwanted entropy that is purposely applied by a being with at least approximate human level awareness.

We live in a world that renews itself constantly, that must destroy itself in order to make way for the new. Each of us play a role in that destruction, with attitudes towards our own destructiveness ranging from acceptance to denial to obliviousness to relish. It's the latter that is usually associated with "evil".

If an alien David Attenborough was observing humanity, he would note the different types - leaders, hangers on, soldiers, workers, predators, parasites, intermediaries and so forth, and he notice that the groups are all in various states of turmoil both from within and without. While the individuals and families embroiled in their lives would think of some events as as evil, the alien naturalist would see no evil at all, just the competition of nature.
I can agree with this, Greta, as I say the origin of evil predates intelligent people. It's what we need to survive, but unfortunately we do everything big, which means our errors match the size of our drive to survive. I think at this point it would also be good to say that our greed measures the size of our self preservation, which makes one question sometimes if our survival was in danger in the first place or whether we are not threatening it for the sake of greed. Though I am carnal and have little empathy, it does not take away the fact that I at the same time have a desire for logic and order.

-- Updated August 1st, 2017, 3:11 am to add the following --
Spectrum wrote:
Socrateaze wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Sorry, haven't figured out this quoting yet.

You make it sound like you want to completely pacify the human race. I seriously doubt that we will change human impulses in 75 to 100 years, seeing that, like you say, it's in our DNA. You are imagining a complete overhaul of the human mind, reminds me of a movie I once saw where the human race were so hopelessly docile that they had to take someone out of stasis when a real criminal arrived on the scene. Then they found the underground, the humans that refused to bend to the new order of not killing animals for food. The guy served him a rat burger, which was all that they could get their hands on in this wonderfully new improved world.
Your use of docile is rhetorically misleading. It is not exactly 'pacify' but rather act intelligently, rationally, empathically and wisely with a high degree of modulation and mindfulness of the purpose and consequences of what one is doing.

I have quoted Aristotle on the deliberateness of right actions [not being subservient to anyone or one's emotions];
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quot ... 32211.html
Your movie example do not express what % of the World is acting intelligently, rationally and wisely. If the whole human race has a high degree of intelligence and wisdom, there is no way ONE criminal [like Hitler] can take advantage of the majority in the future conditions I have proposed.
I seriously doubt that we will change human impulses in 75 to 100 years,
Morally and ethically there had been quantum changes in the average morality [natural or imposed] and ethics within humanity.
> 100 years ago, hard core slavery was prevalent throughout the World but at present slavery is banned [imposed] by all Nations in the World. In practice there are still some form of 'slavery' going on illegally but attitudes are changing with peer pressure from the majority.
In the past [>100 years] slavery, racism, misogyny and many evil acts were accepted as a norm and not many were voicing or could voice out their views freely. But the trend of improvements has been going on since >100 years ago to now.

The above trend of improvement support my views that greater improvements can be made and expedited with Science and technology [btw with fool proof and no side-effect methods].

One fact is the emergence of mirror neurons [generate empathy and compassion] in the brains of primates and more in humans. This is a trend in evolution and there is a growth of mirror neurons in the average human being in time.
Another point of pessimism is the trend of advancement knowledge is very exponential, thus the potential to have exponential increase in the positive values [morals and ethics] we are looking for.

What I am proposing will not be done blindly and stupidly but rather with higher intelligence, wisdom, rationality, etc. in our positive mental faculties.

Spectrum, we all want to live in a world where stupidity doesn't rule the day, but it is not just about knowledge and intelligence, is it? How many smart people have done terrible things in our history? Who was it who said that knowledge without ethics only breeds clever devils? Like I said to Greta, it's not always a matter of survival, but rather greed, which in the end threatens survival. And like I said in a different thread, people like Hitler was smart, but he went over board and drew too much attention to himself, by mass mass murder and pushing his armies too far too fast. The world needs "evil" but for some reason people can never find the balance in their conquests and personal anger. I completely agree that we should be angry with the right people, for the right reason at the right time and all that, but to think we will completely eradicate things like war is wishful thinking and even if we do and become a space faring civilization the other creatures from the galaxy may start wars with us, or even we with them. Again, it comes down to self-interest.
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Sy Borg
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Sy Borg »

Socrateaze wrote:
Greta wrote:I see "badness" as unwanted entropy applied to us and "evil" as unwanted entropy that is purposely applied by a being with at least approximate human level awareness.

We live in a world that renews itself constantly, that must destroy itself in order to make way for the new. Each of us play a role in that destruction, with attitudes towards our own destructiveness ranging from acceptance to denial to obliviousness to relish. It's the latter that is usually associated with "evil".

If an alien David Attenborough was observing humanity, he would note the different types - leaders, hangers on, soldiers, workers, predators, parasites, intermediaries and so forth, and he notice that the groups are all in various states of turmoil both from within and without. While the individuals and families embroiled in their lives would think of some events as as evil, the alien naturalist would see no evil at all, just the competition of nature.
I can agree with this, Greta, as I say the origin of evil predates intelligent people. It's what we need to survive, but unfortunately we do everything big, which means our errors match the size of our drive to survive. I think at this point it would also be good to say that our greed measures the size of our self preservation, which makes one question sometimes if our survival was in danger in the first place or whether we are not threatening it for the sake of greed. Though I am carnal and have little empathy, it does not take away the fact that I at the same time have a desire for logic and order.
Yes, for instance, grazing animals would have once thought of large predatory cats fairly similarly to humans - a terrifying threat and a scourge. In time people came to think of such things as "evil".

The reason why large companies and moguls always want more is because they are competing with other large players. There are power struggles going on at a large scale level, above and beyond the concerns of unaligned individuals, who are increasingly looking like not much more than resources and collateral damage for institutions. Basically, we "little people" are having done to us by our institutions what humanity did to other species. We are being taken over. Controlled. Culled. So we individuals come to like and trust our institutions about as much as other species like and trust humans.

If you seek logic and order, they are to be found in the upper echelons of society. In the spirit of grand and outrageous metaphors, I think of the larger situation as akin to encephalisation. Think of the relationship between the digestive system and the nervous system. In early life, digestive systems started evolving ever more sophisticated nervous systems to help them negotiate their environments. In the most encephalated species, the brain took over and became the main "show" of our lives. The poor old digestive system was relegated to key support player. Note that the brain takes proportionally ten times more energy than other organs.

As the old mystics used to say, as above so below. In short, in any relatively homogeneous grouping - organic or otherwise - concentrated areas will form over time that will dominate the rest of the grouping. That's basically the story of the universe so far.
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Spectrum »

Socrateaze wrote:Spectrum, we all want to live in a world where stupidity doesn't rule the day, but it is not just about knowledge and intelligence, is it? How many smart people have done terrible things in our history? Who was it who said that knowledge without ethics only breeds clever devils?
I stated there is more to knowledge and intelligence. Note I mentioned the following;
Spectrum wrote:"act intelligently, rationally, empathically and wisely with a high degree of modulation and mindfulness of the purpose and consequences of what one is doing."
There are many psychopaths and serial killers who has very high IQ, Ted Bundy for example. So intelligence is not equal to good morality.
However, note the additional elements in bold above [you seem to have missed], they cover moral, ethics and right actions.
Like I said to Greta, it's not always a matter of survival, but rather greed, which in the end threatens survival. And like I said in a different thread, people like Hitler was smart, but he went over board and drew too much attention to himself, by mass mass murder and pushing his armies too far too fast. The world needs "evil" but for some reason people can never find the balance in their conquests and personal anger. I completely agree that we should be angry with the right people, for the right reason at the right time and all that, but to think we will completely eradicate things like war is wishful thinking and even if we do and become a space faring civilization the other creatures from the galaxy may start wars with us, or even we with them. Again, it comes down to self-interest.
Survival is the central core activity of all humans.

Greed is a subset impulse of survival and many individuals will be driven by greed. However as with progressive nature, within any human group, co-operation and other positive traits will always override greed. This is evident anthropologically in many societies. In a progressive moral state [increased wisdom, empathy, the likes] natural greed and avarice are the greater evils that will be managed and modulated.

I do not have information of creatures from other galaxies thus I cannot say anything about them. If they are a known threat then humanity will have to deal with them, btw this is off topic.

However based what we know of humans at present and their potential collectively, I am optimistic humanity can reach a stage of no wars in the future when the conditions I proposed are met. My only reservation is Islam and hopefully by then Islam would have been got rid of.

Note the basic principles in this;
wiki wrote:Perpetual peace refers to a state of affairs where peace is permanently established over a certain area.

The idea of perpetual peace was first suggested in the 18th century, when Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre published his essay "Project for Perpetual Peace" anonymously while working as the negotiator for the Treaty of Utrecht. However, the idea did not become well known until the late 18th century.
The term perpetual peace became acknowledged when German philosopher Immanuel Kant published his 1795 essay "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch".
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by -1- »

-1-'s tangible experience with the advertised notion of Perpetual Peace

"Between the mountains, between the valleys,
The train makes its noise;
Of the loveliest girls, I choose you, with poise;
We have one slogan, "perpetual piece",
Stand up with us and fight for it, Liese!
Between the mountains and between the valleys
The train makes its noise... etc repeat."

This was a communist march which broke with the traditional blood-gore-and-hate elements, and took in some amorous love into the flow of the lyrics. But it came back to the great communist perplexing self-contradiction nevertheless: "Let's fight for peace".

Communism in Europe grew up during and immediately after war times, so little wonder that they kept on harping about peace, fighting for peace, perpetual peace. There was a lot of hungry people whom they had to satisfy on the most basic levels of human needs, for a number of years or decades after WWII in the so-called Communist countries (they called themselves Socialist countries), so they gave them songs to bellow out. Not the best match for their needs, but hey, they took what they could.
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by September »

what you refer to as "evil" starts with verbal communication. when people started to forget to communicate through the public frequency of love, they created 3 levels of communications, with the latest being words and phrases. when that happened. people lost true contact with each other and they could not communicate anymore without using words. the advantage that had for "Evil" is that people could now lie. lie or false truth leads to entitle evil some actions.
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Sy Borg »

Spectrum wrote:
Socrateaze wrote:Like I said to Greta, it's not always a matter of survival, but rather greed, which in the end threatens survival. And like I said in a different thread, people like Hitler was smart, but he went over board and drew too much attention to himself, by mass mass murder and pushing his armies too far too fast. The world needs "evil" but for some reason people can never find the balance in their conquests and personal anger. I completely agree that we should be angry with the right people, for the right reason at the right time and all that, but to think we will completely eradicate things like war is wishful thinking and even if we do and become a space faring civilization the other creatures from the galaxy may start wars with us, or even we with them. Again, it comes down to self-interest.
Survival is the central core activity of all humans.

Greed is a subset impulse of survival and many individuals will be driven by greed. However as with progressive nature, within any human group, co-operation and other positive traits will always override greed.
Then the internally cooperative groups themselves behave greedily. What does it morally mean to be a gentle, honest, kind and careful member of a larger entity that is focused purely on growth and acquisition and will crush anything that gets in its way?

I expect that a new morality will emerge at corporate and governmental levels as it has done at an individual level. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Spectrum »

Greta wrote:Then the internally cooperative groups themselves behave greedily. What does it morally mean to be a gentle, honest, kind and careful member of a larger entity that is focused purely on growth and acquisition and will crush anything that gets in its way?

I expect that a new morality will emerge at corporate and governmental levels as it has done at an individual level. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
It is inherent in human[s] to evolve and progress to a greater security of survival, thus to the group and the whole of humanity.

The individual is inherently 'greedy' [selfish] but there is an overriding impulse to co-operate for the greater good of the group.

Then there is an evolved inherent impulse of tribalism as you had implied [re group themselves are greedy for their own type - us].

However as humans evolved further in time, the co-operation impulse will still override this tribal instinct. This is obvious in the many global co-operations that are currently going on, e.g. co-operation on global warning, cross boundary pollution, the International Space Station, etc. as individual[s] are beginning to realize the human specie is facing global and galactical threats. Humans will has no choice but to co-operate [for synergy] together as a species if there is evidently a large enough meteor coming directly and heading towards Earth.

Selfishness in inherent in human[s] but so is co-operation will others but in any trade-off it is also inherent co-operation [synergy as evident] will always prevail for the greater good. This point should be made 'absolute' as a moral guide.
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Socrateaze »

Greta wrote:
Socrateaze wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


I can agree with this, Greta, as I say the origin of evil predates intelligent people. It's what we need to survive, but unfortunately we do everything big, which means our errors match the size of our drive to survive. I think at this point it would also be good to say that our greed measures the size of our self preservation, which makes one question sometimes if our survival was in danger in the first place or whether we are not threatening it for the sake of greed. Though I am carnal and have little empathy, it does not take away the fact that I at the same time have a desire for logic and order.
Yes, for instance, grazing animals would have once thought of large predatory cats fairly similarly to humans - a terrifying threat and a scourge. In time people came to think of such things as "evil".

The reason why large companies and moguls always want more is because they are competing with other large players. There are power struggles going on at a large scale level, above and beyond the concerns of unaligned individuals, who are increasingly looking like not much more than resources and collateral damage for institutions. Basically, we "little people" are having done to us by our institutions what humanity did to other species. We are being taken over. Controlled. Culled. So we individuals come to like and trust our institutions about as much as other species like and trust humans.

If you seek logic and order, they are to be found in the upper echelons of society. In the spirit of grand and outrageous metaphors, I think of the larger situation as akin to encephalisation. Think of the relationship between the digestive system and the nervous system. In early life, digestive systems started evolving ever more sophisticated nervous systems to help them negotiate their environments. In the most encephalated species, the brain took over and became the main "show" of our lives. The poor old digestive system was relegated to key support player. Note that the brain takes proportionally ten times more energy than other organs.

As the old mystics used to say, as above so below. In short, in any relatively homogeneous grouping - organic or otherwise - concentrated areas will form over time that will dominate the rest of the grouping. That's basically the story of the universe so far.
Did you know that the gut sometimes acts like "a brain?" It is in connection with our "intuition" or rather connects with the part of the brain that does not sits in our conscience. Perhaps the old saying of, "gut feeling" was quite accurate. I think you can find this information on Thoughty2's channel on YouTube, but I cannot exactly recall which channel it was.

I have always held that, despite the harm organisations cause, they do play a part in our daily lives. I would not compare them with a brain, since the brain is in symbiosis with the body, it may border on commercialism or a parasitic relation, but it's not one or the other, though different organisations play different roles in society. It seems we pay a price for our relationships with them as much as they benefit us, whether we subscribed to those relations or not. So, perhaps the same is true for evil. Aside from anarchy, organized institutions are evil for the sake of those who do not want to involve themselves in evil. Someone has to sleep at night.

-- Updated August 2nd, 2017, 4:59 am to add the following --
Spectrum wrote:
Socrateaze wrote:Spectrum, we all want to live in a world where stupidity doesn't rule the day, but it is not just about knowledge and intelligence, is it? How many smart people have done terrible things in our history? Who was it who said that knowledge without ethics only breeds clever devils?
I stated there is more to knowledge and intelligence. Note I mentioned the following;
Spectrum wrote:"act intelligently, rationally, empathically and wisely with a high degree of modulation and mindfulness of the purpose and consequences of what one is doing."
There are many psychopaths and serial killers who has very high IQ, Ted Bundy for example. So intelligence is not equal to good morality.
However, note the additional elements in bold above [you seem to have missed], they cover moral, ethics and right actions.
Like I said to Greta, it's not always a matter of survival, but rather greed, which in the end threatens survival. And like I said in a different thread, people like Hitler was smart, but he went over board and drew too much attention to himself, by mass mass murder and pushing his armies too far too fast. The world needs "evil" but for some reason people can never find the balance in their conquests and personal anger. I completely agree that we should be angry with the right people, for the right reason at the right time and all that, but to think we will completely eradicate things like war is wishful thinking and even if we do and become a space faring civilization the other creatures from the galaxy may start wars with us, or even we with them. Again, it comes down to self-interest.
Survival is the central core activity of all humans.

Greed is a subset impulse of survival and many individuals will be driven by greed. However as with progressive nature, within any human group, co-operation and other positive traits will always override greed. This is evident anthropologically in many societies. In a progressive moral state [increased wisdom, empathy, the likes] natural greed and avarice are the greater evils that will be managed and modulated.

I do not have information of creatures from other galaxies thus I cannot say anything about them. If they are a known threat then humanity will have to deal with them, btw this is off topic.

However based what we know of humans at present and their potential collectively, I am optimistic humanity can reach a stage of no wars in the future when the conditions I proposed are met. My only reservation is Islam and hopefully by then Islam would have been got rid of.

Note the basic principles in this;
wiki wrote:Perpetual peace refers to a state of affairs where peace is permanently established over a certain area.

The idea of perpetual peace was first suggested in the 18th century, when Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre published his essay "Project for Perpetual Peace" anonymously while working as the negotiator for the Treaty of Utrecht. However, the idea did not become well known until the late 18th century.
The term perpetual peace became acknowledged when German philosopher Immanuel Kant published his 1795 essay "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch".
I can agree with much that you're saying, but if we're going to talk about the origin of evil, are we going to assume that evil only exists on earth? Should there be extraterrestrials and they behave in the same evil way, this is very much ON topic, because it would prove evil is not evil, but something else.

-- Updated August 2nd, 2017, 5:02 am to add the following --
-1- wrote:-1-'s tangible experience with the advertised notion of Perpetual Peace

"Between the mountains, between the valleys,
The train makes its noise;
Of the loveliest girls, I choose you, with poise;
We have one slogan, "perpetual piece",
Stand up with us and fight for it, Liese!
Between the mountains and between the valleys
The train makes its noise... etc repeat."

This was a communist march which broke with the traditional blood-gore-and-hate elements, and took in some amorous love into the flow of the lyrics. But it came back to the great communist perplexing self-contradiction nevertheless: "Let's fight for peace".

Communism in Europe grew up during and immediately after war times, so little wonder that they kept on harping about peace, fighting for peace, perpetual peace. There was a lot of hungry people whom they had to satisfy on the most basic levels of human needs, for a number of years or decades after WWII in the so-called Communist countries (they called themselves Socialist countries), so they gave them songs to bellow out. Not the best match for their needs, but hey, they took what they could.
Interesting, but didn't Carlin say, "Fighting for peace is like scr*ew*ng for virginity?@
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by LuckyR »

Spectrum wrote:
LuckyR wrote:Well, many think of evil as a label for an action that is the opposite of good. Others think evil is a specific force, perhaps wielded by an entity, say the Devil, that causes or encourages individual humans to do acts that are evil by the first definition.
By this second definition evil can be "fought" by the forces of good, whereas by the first definition evil isn't really counteracted, you just personally do good acts and encourage others to do the same and hope in the final analysis the world is a better place than it was before.
Not exactly, evil is not "fought" by the forces of good.
The potential for evil is inherent within the human [ALL] brain and this cannot be got rid of because it is embedded in the human DNA inherited from our past ancestors back to the first human and first one-cell living things.

It is like the inherent program for the sex impulse which is actively triggered actively when one reaches puberty by hormones and external stimuli.

Like the inherent sexual impulse, the inherent evil impulse can only be inhibited, suppressed and modulated. This is why the majority of humans are not driven to have sex like animals with their uncontrollable instincts. But a minority of humans do have a problem with their lack of control of their sexual impulses, thus the rapes, sex additions, etc.
It is the same for the evil impulse that is inherent within all humans where there are SOME humans who are unfortunately born with an active tendency for evil and they have lack of control over their evil impulses.

So with humans, the objective is for all humans to inhibit, suppress and modulate the inherent evil potential within their brain/mind and activate the impulses that are supposedly good [morally] for the individual and therefrom the collective.

It is not likely that humanity will be able to get rid of the evil potential within all humans since it is too complex biologically and some elements of it in a controlled way are necessary. So the only way is to inhibit, suppress and modulate the evil impulses.

Evil from a external Devil is an illusory idea.
The potential for evil is within all humans.
I don't disagree with your assessment, though I can see the same situation two different ways, depending on the particular drivers of behavior. In the first, if all behavior can be graphed from 0 (completely evil) to 100 (completely good), then the idea that different individual's behaviors would fall below 50 is a statistical certainty, thus why evil behavior requires no explanation. OTOH, it is appropriate to invoke language that implies "evil tendencies", since we have all considered doing the wrong thing, did it, and got a little bit of an emotional thrill out of breaking the rules.
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Re: The Origin of evil

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Socrateaze wrote: Interesting, but didn't Carlin say, "Fighting for peace is like scr*ew*ng for virginity?@
Precisely.

It's also like poking eyes out for a clearer vision, like destroying all food stamps to stamp out world hunger, like employing international diplomacy to run a fair and equitable global society, and like using lawyers to eradicate lying.

Using more and more contentious fractions of religions to prove there is only one god, using education to make people smarter, using philosophy forums to show we are smarter than the person next to us. Not just plain smarter, or marginally smarter, but waaaay, waaaay, waaaay, waaaay smarter. (If you want to undertake the onerous but honourable task, you can increase the number of times "waaaay" is repeated. Strictly on a volunteer-work basis. You have my blessings to do so.)
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Socrateaze »

-1- wrote:
Socrateaze wrote: Interesting, but didn't Carlin say, "Fighting for peace is like scr*ew*ng for virginity?@
Precisely.

It's also like poking eyes out for a clearer vision, like destroying all food stamps to stamp out world hunger, like employing international diplomacy to run a fair and equitable global society, and like using lawyers to eradicate lying.

Using more and more contentious fractions of religions to prove there is only one god, using education to make people smarter, using philosophy forums to show we are smarter than the person next to us. Not just plain smarter, or marginally smarter, but waaaay, waaaay, waaaay, waaaay smarter. (If you want to undertake the onerous but honourable task, you can increase the number of times "waaaay" is repeated. Strictly on a volunteer-work basis. You have my blessings to do so.)
My dear friend, I am not honorable, nor do I intend to undertake any quests to better the world. Virgins are meant to be broken, peace will always be disturbed in some way and here we spend our favorite pass-time rattling each other's cages. I say, embrace evil, enjoy every moment of it, but stay out of jail and don't sh*t where you eat. We speak here of the origin of evil, but the prime evils do not indwell the fool or the anarchist. Why would evil live in something that was self-destructive? Evil seeks places where it can endure and it derives pleasure not from wars, rapes and murder, but rather the birth of its slaves and their joys, since living within them should not be a life of strife, but luxury and comfort. If there is evil in a person, it would rather strive to live in bliss than harming the host it lives inside of. Hence, evil has a self-interest and seeks tranquility and peace, rather than self-torment. Evil does not want to see this world in ashes, but would rather improve it, for its own sake. It is our natal doom to procreate the earth for the sake of the evil inside us. Those who suffer by the hand of the wicked have no evil dwelling inside them, because evil does not wage war against its brothers and sisters. The less fortunate are merely slaves without symbiotes.
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Re: The Origin of evil

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I don't believe the least bit that evil is an entity on its own. It is viewed to exist always as something relative to the success of someone or of some group.

I believe I expressed my views on evil rather succinctly in post #30 on page 2 of this thread. I think it would be a worthwhile task to revisit that post (if anyone hasn't missed it) or visit it if you missed it.
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Re: The Origin of evil

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-1- wrote:I don't believe the least bit that evil is an entity on its own. It is viewed to exist always as something relative to the success of someone or of some group.

I believe I expressed my views on evil rather succinctly in post #30 on page 2 of this thread. I think it would be a worthwhile task to revisit that post (if anyone hasn't missed it) or visit it if you missed it.
No, evil is not an entity on its own, you are right when you say "someone or some group," which is what I said in my previous post too, "someone or some group." Evil or goodness incarnated ... gods, if you will are just ideas. However, are we so conceited to think that all our ideas truly belong to us? It is one thing to cling to evolution of life, but what of evolution apart from life ... or combined? Are our ideas truly our own? It seems a bit arrogant to say so. What of our environment, it spawned us after all. If I have an idea in my head, even if it is imaginary and I live out that life, I affect my environment: I change people and things, sometimes in a big way, sometimes not. But if I live out my ideas and can affect my environment, can the reverse also be true? If our ideas shape our world, perhaps some "ideas" shaped us. One can only wonder in what form or force these "ideas" existed before the dawn of humans. Perhaps evil is the same and to think that we put it in motion may be false, perhaps it was there ... in some form before we existed. We cannot be true to cosmological evolution or any evolution for that matter if we reason that our ideas are purely our own.
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Re: The Origin of evil

Post by Sy Borg »

Socrateaze wrote:I can agree with this, Greta, as I say the origin of evil predates intelligent people. It's what we need to survive, but unfortunately we do everything big, which means our errors match the size of our drive to survive. I think at this point it would also be good to say that our greed measures the size of our self preservation, which makes one question sometimes if our survival was in danger in the first place or whether we are not threatening it for the sake of greed. Though I am carnal and have little empathy, it does not take away the fact that I at the same time have a desire for logic and order.
Greta wrote:Yes, for instance, grazing animals would have once thought of large predatory cats fairly similarly to humans - a terrifying threat and a scourge. In time people came to think of such things as "evil".

The reason why large companies and moguls always want more is because they are competing with other large players. There are power struggles going on at a large scale level, above and beyond the concerns of unaligned individuals, who are increasingly looking like not much more than resources and collateral damage for institutions. Basically, we "little people" are having done to us by our institutions what humanity did to other species. We are being taken over. Controlled. Culled. So we individuals come to like and trust our institutions about as much as other species like and trust humans.

If you seek logic and order, they are to be found in the upper echelons of society. In the spirit of grand and outrageous metaphors, I think of the larger situation as akin to encephalisation. Think of the relationship between the digestive system and the nervous system. In early life, digestive systems started evolving ever more sophisticated nervous systems to help them negotiate their environments. In the most encephalated species, the brain took over and became the main "show" of our lives. The poor old digestive system was relegated to key support player. Note that the brain takes proportionally ten times more energy than other organs.

As the old mystics used to say, as above so below. In short, in any relatively homogeneous grouping - organic or otherwise - concentrated areas will form over time that will dominate the rest of the grouping. That's basically the story of the universe so far.
Socrateaze wrote:I have always held that, despite the harm organisations cause, they do play a part in our daily lives. I would not compare them with a brain, since the brain is in symbiosis with the body, it may border on commercialism or a parasitic relation, but it's not one or the other, though different organisations play different roles in society. It seems we pay a price for our relationships with them as much as they benefit us, whether we subscribed to those relations or not. So, perhaps the same is true for evil. Aside from anarchy, organized institutions are evil for the sake of those who do not want to involve themselves in evil. Someone has to sleep at night.
Yet, without organisations we are either living short, dangerous lives or we are dead. Humans have thrived thanks to their ability to form colonies in what looks like a fractal replay of ants' rise to dominance in the insect world. Eusocial behaviour is clearly strongly naturally selected and this requires far more cooperation than is seen in smaller, less structured groupings. Within the global body of humanity are many large colonies, which themselves break down into governments, institutions / organisations, various smaller groupings and individuals.

The most succinct and clear description of individuals' relationship with such institutions I've found is Life of Brian's "What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us" scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ.

Costs: loss of freedom, loss of privacy, some form of cost or taxation/donation
Benefits: safety, security, infrastructure and resources.

Metaphorically, humans - like ants and mitochondria - can be thought of as gold-diggers who found life easier attached to a sugar daddy than making a life on their own, basically trading some freedoms for lifestyle :) So it really is symbiotic, not parasitic.
Socrateaze wrote:My dear friend, I am not honorable, nor do I intend to undertake any quests to better the world. Virgins are meant to be broken, peace will always be disturbed in some way and here we spend our favorite pass-time rattling each other's cages. I say, embrace evil, enjoy every moment of it, but stay out of jail and don't sh*t where you eat. We speak here of the origin of evil, but the prime evils do not indwell the fool or the anarchist. Why would evil live in something that was self-destructive? Evil seeks places where it can endure and it derives pleasure not from wars, rapes and murder, but rather the birth of its slaves and their joys, since living within them should not be a life of strife, but luxury and comfort. If there is evil in a person, it would rather strive to live in bliss than harming the host it lives inside of. Hence, evil has a self-interest and seeks tranquility and peace, rather than self-torment. Evil does not want to see this world in ashes, but would rather improve it, for its own sake. It is our natal doom to procreate the earth for the sake of the evil inside us. Those who suffer by the hand of the wicked have no evil dwelling inside them, because evil does not wage war against its brothers and sisters. The less fortunate are merely slaves without symbiotes.
Ha! Love the prose :)

What I'm hearing is that evil ⩰ self-interest. I think people usually associate evil with sadistic sociopathy. Maybe that could be first degree evil? From there we might work down the degrees until we reach the dispassionate "steamrollering" self-interest you described above.

The common element between degrees of "evil" is the objectification of living, feeling things, which is a necessary mindset for any predator to survive. a predator that hesitates through a sense of kinship with other living things is not one to survive and pass on its genes. So we humans necessarily have this capacity to "switch off" our empathy in the presence of certain stimuli. The law of averages suggests that some people will be more prone to predatory objectifying mindsets than others.
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