kids are an antidote for depression
any normal human is programmed to pay a lot of attention to them so they distract you effectively
basically effective distraction is what life is about. things won't distract you unless they are reasonably beneficial. think about how a mouse makes decisions, they follow whatever distracts them. basically people do too. although, sometimes we do math homework because we just figure it will be beneficial in the long run, not because it distracts us. but it seems like the people who really are into math professionally actually do get distracted with it, they enjoy the math problems. actually some of them (the problems) are interesting sort of, but most were boring last time i checked.
interacting with friends is also an effective distraction. apparently, social interaction was pretty beneficial to humans and evolution just programmed the hunger for it into people. exactly the same as food being beneficial so evolution programmed a desire for food into people.
although, i get mixed results with social interaction. i get the desire, which is programmed, although it's sometimes sort of stressful if i do go do it.
making out is also distracting, yippeeeee, but you already have enough distractions.
lets see, food, some kind of social interaction, making out, that's pretty much all people need, if you satisfy those objectives as a society, you'll stay alive (as a society) and propagate/reproduce as a society, and function as a society.
oh but one more thing... you need some way to sort of organize long term objectives. you need to work toward a common goal of some kind. you want to operate on a time scale longer than a human life span. so there's one more objective that nature threw in and it's spiritual. pretty much every human society. only problem is that is a bit illogical in my opinion.
hold up, pretty much all of the objectives are illogical. you eat to stay alive, but why stay alive. actually there is no reason - *logically* - there is no reason to stay alive.
this is critical, life does not make sense and spirituality is there to hold down the fort in terms of social cohesiveness and in terms of making life appear to make logical sense.
but spirituality really cannot be logical, it's the antidote for humans getting too logical. nature gave us general problem solving logic, and then had to stop it from going out of control. most animals don't really need religion, because they don't really have that general problem solving thing. (i'm not really explaining this, something missing.)
how does religion work, take the love and respect that you are programmed to feel for your father as a child and transfer it to a God that can be configured however you want. you write a book that describes him. he takes on whatever personality you want. if you're an israelite, you make a law enforcer god.
if you're jesus, you create more of a caring, loving god, antidepressant in hard times.
if you make daddy happy you are happy, that's programmed so you will sort of seek the objectives of your parents, which, often are quite well thought out. seeking them is beneficial - that's why the instinct is there.
once that instict is transferred to god, you're going to get the "high" when you make god proud. eventually i assume nature programmed more spirituality into people so that the higher power actually carries some weight of its own, like more wait than the literal father when you are older.
and the bible is right, the truth is poison fruit (maybe). telling people you need to be nice to sort of propagate the organism that is humanity isn't all that convincing. it's also confusing. better to just figure out the basic laws that ensure a pretty functional society and enforce them blindly, more or less, ten commandments. if people don't want to follow them say that god wrote them, say that god wrote them. say that god's going to let you die (or possibly kill you) if you don't follow them. assign god to a bunch of natural events like sickness to make it seem he is operating (old testiment).
most scientists get a high out of science. they want to get credit for discovering something or whatever. apparently this thing has evolved in human culture where you want to be famous or prestigious or whatever in the eyes of others. this is to encourage people to do things that impress other people. it basically enslaves us to the populace. it's not bad, that's just the way the dials are turned. in reality, i think the way people talk about einstein and the like is sort of retarded. he was a good scientist, no doubt, very good. but, i'm pretty sure that a large number of people could figure that stuff out, assuming they devotes years of time thinking about it like he did, assuming that it *distracted* them like it distracted him, he was interested in the stuff.
does advancing humanity scientifically really matter? probably not. humans aren't good or bad. they sort of suck up resources like any other animal.
"but humans make art so that makes them special"... big deal. art is just stuff that tickles the fancy of humans. if you showed music to an alien, he might think it's cool, or he might just think it's noise, depends on how his brain is configured.
there's something a roommate said, he was prone to depression, he read in a book where even if you are animals floating alone on a ball of dirt somewhere in the galaxy, that's ok because there is joy to be found in this life.
and that is true, there is joy to be found. arguably that's what life is "for" in a practical sense. those distractions are joy.
but i think there's one other thing to consider, if you hack the human brain, treat it like any other computer program, a bunch of other possibilities open up. that's why i work on what i work on. it's not always a good distraction, but i think it has potential to open up a lot of other distractions, more unbounded, in time and space.
-david
Mary wrote:
> hello again rick,
>
> i didn't sleep very restfully but i did mull your email over pretty good.
>
> firstly, i get depressed too sometimes; people, places, and things are
> just little fuzz-puffy things that distract from the reality of
> loneliness that bears down upon me. it is not always harsh, but when my
> kids are gone for awhile, or when i am surrounded by people whom i don't
> know, it is particularly glaring.
>
> and then i say to myself, "sleep, tomorrow will be better..." and it
> always is. someone comes by, or calls, or writes, or a stranger is
> friendly, or some other small but pleasant thing happens. sometimes i
> have to force myself to believe that things will be okay, if not
> necessarily better.
>
> and do you know, i was feeling low today, and i got an email from you! :)
>
> yes, i agree that everyone is more than a little crazy. i try to stick
> to people who share similar delusions.
>
> you are a good person, and i don't mean that as in good vs bad. i mean
> that as in you have value in this life and a lot to offer. your
> non-judgemental perspective is one that helps /me/ contemplate and
> question my version of reality; i appreciate and respect you for that.
>
> as far as making out, i don't know what to say. i think my desires have
> been placed on hold for now, which is probably a good thing. (religion
> has little to with it, although i do strive to be a good person
> toward God's higher purpose mostly.) i think i'm just too busy to think
> about anything other than what i'm doing today, and i usually figure out
> what comes next just in time.
>
> advice i am not good at. but i do understand where you are coming from.
> feeling emotionally lost is very familiar to me. that's when i found
> you, and i'm sorry if i spread it to you, lol! but i am not sorry that i
> met you.
>
> i told you before, i am always here, feel free to write or call me
> anytime. i may not be much help but i promise i understand a lot.
>
> yours, mary
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> >
> > dear mary,
> >
> > lets see... i think i'm going insane, slowly, one day at a time, maybe
> > i've already crossed that bridge, not sure. but everybody is insane. if
> > you're not insane you're depressed. the classical symptoms of depression
> > are basically people accepting facts that are correct, that's what i
> > remember from psychology class.
> >
> > i miss you.
> >
> > you're in between. in between the witnesses and everybody else.
> >
> > philosophical considerations aside,
> >
> > i think we should be allowed to make out. i feel like this is important.
> > yes, we should be allowed to make out and you should have no guilt or
> > remorse of any kind. it's not really the religion that's made you feel
> > guilt in the past ... probably had a lot to do with just intuition. to a
> > large extent, religion does just sort of re-enforce a bunch of
> > intuition. although sometimes i think i messes things up.
> >
> >
> > just thinking out loud
> >
> > -david
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
