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Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

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Re: Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

#21
post #8

The most successful life form on a planet will probably always ask themselves this. Because if we'd been happy remaining primitive then we wouldn't have become advanced. We were not happy after inventing technology (not with technology either, but we thought we would be). Evolutionarily: The people who were happy without children, or another child, or a second wife to make more children, were not as successful in pro…

So ... the satisfied drop out of the gene pool and we're sampling from the lineage of the unsatisfied.

Survivorship bias?

Re: Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire argument follows from a single incredible, unsubstantiated assumption, that “creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.”

I think this is substantiated, we absolutely desire our needs. I can't think of one single desire that does not demand satisfaction. Perhaps I am not understanding something.

It is not substantiated that all desires arise from an associated, achievable need.

I need food so I desire food and I eat to satisfy it.

I desire to have perfect love and relationships, but can’t seem to achieve it.

But if I cannot find a perfect slice of pizza, g-d exists and another world follows this one where the pizza is truly satisfying?

Believe whatever you like, but realize Faith is required for this to follow that. Logic won’t do it for you alone.

Re: Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

#24
post #8

The most successful life form on a planet will probably always ask themselves this. Because if we'd been happy remaining primitive then we wouldn't have become advanced. We were not happy after inventing technology (not with technology either, but we thought we would be). Evolutionarily: The people who were happy without children, or another child, or a second wife to make more children, were not as successful in pro…

> The most successful life form on a planet will probably always ask themselves this. I wonder what answer the dinosaurs had? Perhaps they were happy becoming the fuel of our technology millions of years later. _Most successful_ begs the question on what scale that would be?

Dinosaurs didn't become oil. Marine plants and animals did.

Re: Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

#26

I’ve yet to watch the video, however I’ve always assumed that people are never satisfied because satisfaction would not be very useful in our natural environment. Given that resources will almost always be constrained, satisfaction serves no purpose. Striving for more food, more status, more connection is always more useful practically speaking than being satisfied with what you have. In fact, the question “why aren’…

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Re: Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

#27
post #6

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. ... If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthy pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that…

I've read some of CS Lewis' writings on religion. I'm an atheist married to a person of faith, so I'm interested in what the people I love find so compelling about their faith.

He's a very charismatic writer, but sneaky in his arguments. For example, my rebuttal to the above would be: "Humans are evolved from apes who are social animals. No matter what we achieve materially, we will always crave social recognition, status, and love from other humans. And because other humans are imperfect, we can never get to a state where we are perfectly loved, content, and free from the fear that these things will be taken away."

He has a similar argument in "Mere Christianity", where (I paraphrase and over-simplify) he says that whatever goodness there is in humans proves there must be a God, because otherwise why would people ever want to do anything "good" rather than just what immediately benefits them? But I feel like that has a similar response to the above - we know that evolution exists, we know we evolved from apes, and we've watched apes exhibit the same social behaviors that we do. There are many times when it makes sense to act pro-socially (to do "good" things as CS Lewis would describe them) in order to get a greater benefit (from your community) than you would by acting purely selfishly.

This doesn't make humans bad, or make it any less "good" to do good things! I don't understand the idea that these behaviors are any less good or meaningful because we do them for natural reasons rather than supernatural ones.

Re: Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

#28

Some humans live in a state of satisfaction because they have dispensed with desire. This is one of the principles of buddhist enlightenment.

I thought so too, but it makes more sense to me that "stop desiring things" is a koan, and not a literal instruction. A koan is like a little paradox, a word problem that a student needs to solve before being allowed to the next "level". The solution is that you cannot stop desiring. Even if you try very hard, you will still have, at the very least, the desire to stop desiring. Source: I've been listening to Alan Watts

Re: Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire argument follows from a single incredible, unsubstantiated assumption, that “creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.”

I think this is substantiated, we absolutely desire our needs. I can't think of one single desire that does not demand satisfaction. Perhaps I am not understanding something.

In the case that Lewis is alluding to (an unsatisfied yearning for spiritual fulfillment), the argument is tautological. If God is real in the way he imagines it, the presence of this spiritual yearning is a kind of evidence. If God is not real in the way he imagines, the presence of this spiritual yearning is evidence that the assertion is false.

Re: Why are humans never satisfied? [video]

#30
post #28

Some humans live in a state of satisfaction because they have dispensed with desire. This is one of the principles of buddhist enlightenment.

I thought so too, but it makes more sense to me that "stop desiring things" is a koan, and not a literal instruction. A koan is like a little paradox, a word problem that a student needs to solve before being allowed to the next "level". The solution is that you cannot stop desiring. Even if you try very hard, you will still have, at the very least, the desire to stop desiring. Source: I've been listening to Alan Wat…

> Even if you try very hard

This is the paradox, while you are "trying" as you have observed, you are still desiring. Letting go of desire is effortless.

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