Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 75 posts

Re: Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

#51

Post by [deleted] »

debaserab2 wrote: post #46
sebringj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@bholzer put it nicely. Google "chimps and bonobos demonstrate morality". Cooperation increased survivability and that generally has affected our acceptance of what is intrinsic to what feels right. Later religion slapped on meaning to it via super natural explanation which was the best bullshit they could come up with at the time. I get up voted on PC answers by the way but I should have cited some examples.

Seeing a chimp and bonobo demonstrate morality doesn't exactly assure me that a born sense of morality is "adequate enough by itself". Pretty sure there is a zoo in Cincinnati that agrees with me on that one.

[deleted]

Re: Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

#52

Post by CPLX »

ProAm wrote: post #21
mhurron wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. -- The Byrds. FTFY /not actually serious

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again." -- R.Jordan

“To be is to do” —Socrates

“To do is to be” —Jean-Paul Sartre

“Do be do be do” —Frank Sinatra

Re: Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

#53

Post by sebringj »

debaserab2 wrote: post #46
sebringj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@bholzer put it nicely. Google "chimps and bonobos demonstrate morality". Cooperation increased survivability and that generally has affected our acceptance of what is intrinsic to what feels right. Later religion slapped on meaning to it via super natural explanation which was the best bullshit they could come up with at the time. I get up voted on PC answers by the way but I should have cited some examples.

Seeing a chimp and bonobo demonstrate morality doesn't exactly assure me that a born sense of morality is "adequate enough by itself". Pretty sure there is a zoo in Cincinnati that agrees with me on that one.

Prison isn't known for bringing out the best in humans either.

Re: Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

#54

Post by gnaritas »

debaserab2 wrote: post #20
sebringj wrote: post #18

Completely removing religion and pc correctness and cultural obligations from my life fairly early on resulted in a very light weight approach to life and the removal of inner chatter bullshit. Do what makes sense to you to get the best result in the purpose of life you have chosen. Basic morality has already been ingrained in us through evolution and is quite adequate by itself. Why we then we must slap words on it…

> Basic morality has already been ingrained in us through evolution and is quite adequate by itself. How exactly did you arrive at that conclusion?

> How exactly did you arrive at that conclusion?

You're here aren't you? Had it not been sufficient, the human animal wouldn't have survived for 200k years. Morality is innate, instinctual, and is present across the animal kingdom.

Re: Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

#55

Post by astazangasta »

This title is exactly wrong, or at least misleading, according to CBT. The whole process of examining your feelings is to determine whether they have a sound basis. The basic loop is: identify feeling, then assumptions that led to that feeling, then try and replace those assumptions with better, more accurate ones. E.g. "I am sad." -> "everyone hates me" can be modified by realizing, no, my cat doesn't hate me, nor does my best friend Jen. Since I now know "everyone hates me" is not correct, the feelings that result from this thought can dissipate.

I.e., examine your feelings deeply and understand whether the thoughts behind them are right.

Re: Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

#56

Post by rexpop »

yourapostasy wrote: post #19
kunle_e wrote: post #8

This reminds me of how forgetful we are as a species. The stuff in this article was figured out thousands of years ago and now is being presented almost as if it's something new. It also reminds me that for all of our technological prowess, we still haven't mastered the no-tech fundamentals of dealing with life as human beings.

Maybe someday our ML will be good enough (and alas, it is not currently) that a "fuzzy trope search engine" could be built. Enter a description of a situation, set of relationships, or condition, and up pops references to historical tropes that match and are related. Then I can short-circuit old ideas being pitched to me repackaged in new clothing passing off as genuinely new ideas, and send the pitcher the link. The…

This would be better than the "just-in-case" trope research I've been doing via piles and piles of books.

Re: Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

#58

Post by revscat »

seibelj wrote: post #14

I have met people who not only police everyone's behavior and speech for minor deviations from political correctness, but are constantly worried about how their thoughts are not meeting their own high standards. There is a difference between saying things in a public forum and thinking them when you see something crazy on the street. I just think living that way would be totally exhausting and remove a lot of fun fro…

> Some people just want to hang out with people where saying an off color joke doesn't ruin your fucking life.

Is this something you feel a need to do? Given your previous mention of political correctness, I'm assuming this means you want to tell jokes about black people or Hispanics, but resent the fact that society no longer smiles on such things.

Re: Stop the inner struggle over whether your thoughts and feelings are “right”

#60

Post by unabst »

> pay close attention to those negative emotions, because they're usually trying to tell you something

No. They're always trying to tell you something. That's all emotions are. And they've already spoken, so arguing with them is futile. They're telling your brain how you feel so you can act intelligently on them, not so you can turn around and argue with yourself in the mirror.

There are no negative emotions. They're dumb and honest. There is no "how you should feel". Your brain is the only organ smart enough to pretend. You feel a certain way because that's the way it is. We should always start there.

Post reply on HN