I don't dream at all. Dreams are primarily the consequence of desires and fears. And although I've said before that my fears are mainly about approval, I don't feel any significance for them. I haven't had much of a dream for the last 5 years.
My point was broader than smoking. I used smoking because I am a smoker, and day-to-day, I do not fear the effects of smoking. I'm more likely to fear an external threat than my own behavior. I'm also more likely to fear the unusual than the usual. Most of my fears are caught up in the social atmosphere, whether or not I am approved.
Though it is not popular these days, I actually see some validity to the concept of Platonic forms. There can be no square-circles or other contradictory phenomena in our experience, making the possibilities of manifest objects limited to the domain of experience. Certain meta-cognitive rules of experience such as the law of non-contradiction make for an interesting playground of possible ideas. This playground isn't wholely "imaginary" if it takes into account meta-cognition, they can be intimations of a possible physically manifest reality. When this happens and the thing is desirable, it tends to find its way into being. The imagination then is an extension of the "physical" world, or the physical world is an extension of "imagination". Either way, they are functionally related so as to relate to the same fundamental reality.
Apart from this particular comparison, we are generally more afraid of things that are unlikely to happen to us than things that are common. Smokers are more likely to fear a terrorist attack or an earthquake than heart disease or lung cancer.
So this sociologist named Lawrence Kohlberg came up with a multistage system of human moral development.
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional) 1. Obedience and punishment orientation (How can I avoid punishment?) 2. Self-interest orientation (What's in it for me?) (Paying for a benefit) Level 2 (Conventional) 3. Interpersonal accord and conformity (Social norms) (The good boy/good girl attitude) 4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation (Law and order morality) Level 3 (Post-Conventional) 5. Social contract orientation 6. Universal ethical principles (Principled conscience)
Level 5; according to Kohlberg is the bulk of adults. Their ethics/morals are determined by social contracts. Which is why so many think letting a 92-year old off for murder would send a message to other 92 year olds to commit murder. These people are social contractors. The highest stage is universal ethical principles; it is wrong to commit murder. Plain and simple, there is no "status quo" or "precedent" or "they did it first". It's wrong on principle, you don't do it. If everyone was this mature, we wouldn't have to worry about sending the wrong message.
Additionally, all human emotions can be interpreted with respect to comparitive social value. Pride is actually defined in the dictionaries as; a heightened sense of self-worth.
Heightened relative to what, I ask? To your former self? To other selves? If to your former self, then how was the value of your former self originally determined? By comparison with other selves?
Most likely, we derive our sense of self-worth by comparison with other selves and the social ethos. Therefor to be proud is to feel somewhat elevated beyond your previous comparitively bound sense of self-worth.
All of this is necessarily selfishness, any comparison with others for worth is selfish. Thus, pride is selfish too. It can be shown that a whole slew of emotions from self-pity, to envy to anger are essentially rooted in one's comparitive self-worth. Whereas other feelings like love, are not, and are essentially the opposite; self-less.
"Also people act competitively, are proud of their accomplishments and expect others to be proud of their own accomplishments."
That's not selfish?
This needs to be more clear. Self is a mental concept, the way we think of ourselves as extant individual beings. But there is no self-reliant self. Show me someone who claims to be "self-reliant" and take their air-supply away. Or, take away the massive social structure within which they find themselves "self-reliant". Or, give them all of the money in the world. They will be "rich" relative to no one. Everyone else will go back to using tally-sticks, and the "rich" person's money will be worthless. Even those who appear most "self-reliant" in America are wholly dependent on "America" and constant physical laws of the universe. They are dependent on the relativistic nature of human comparitive value. They aren't self-reliant, it is all pretend.
So this could be why people from elsewhere, especially Asian countries with Daoist philosophy that emphasizes our interpdependence, have a hard time dealing with Americans. Because Americans actually believe they are self-reliant, contrary to all evidence.
That's why I'm not a fan of April Fool's day. The number of calls to 9/11 increases, mostly as a result of fools joking around. "Oh but we are just having fun". Yup, and that is obviously of paramount importance.
Also, I think our society is bizarrely structured so that the most rational acts appear to be the most extreme, and the most irrational acts; like drinking, are the norm.
I liked the Canadian horror film series Cube, Cube 2: Hypercube and Cube Zero. But being taht they were Canadian films, I guess they aren't very well known. Great films about people being held captive inside enigmatic puzzle cubes, as some kind of sick experiment or something.
My point was broader than smoking. I used smoking because I am a smoker, and day-to-day, I do not fear the effects of smoking. I'm more likely to fear an external threat than my own behavior. I'm also more likely to fear the unusual than the usual. Most of my fears are caught up in the social atmosphere, whether or not I am approved.
Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
(How can I avoid punishment?)
2. Self-interest orientation
(What's in it for me?)
(Paying for a benefit)
Level 2 (Conventional)
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/good girl attitude)
4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)
Level 3 (Post-Conventional)
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles
(Principled conscience)
Level 5; according to Kohlberg is the bulk of adults. Their ethics/morals are determined by social contracts. Which is why so many think letting a 92-year old off for murder would send a message to other 92 year olds to commit murder. These people are social contractors. The highest stage is universal ethical principles; it is wrong to commit murder. Plain and simple, there is no "status quo" or "precedent" or "they did it first". It's wrong on principle, you don't do it. If everyone was this mature, we wouldn't have to worry about sending the wrong message.
"I can't believe she said that! What kind of a corvid does she take me for?" "I didn't fall out of the nest yesterday, I am a respectable bird."
I guess not heh. Probably food.
I think it's marvelous! HaHaHa!"
Heightened relative to what, I ask? To your former self? To other selves? If to your former self, then how was the value of your former self originally determined? By comparison with other selves?
Most likely, we derive our sense of self-worth by comparison with other selves and the social ethos. Therefor to be proud is to feel somewhat elevated beyond your previous comparitively bound sense of self-worth.
All of this is necessarily selfishness, any comparison with others for worth is selfish. Thus, pride is selfish too. It can be shown that a whole slew of emotions from self-pity, to envy to anger are essentially rooted in one's comparitive self-worth. Whereas other feelings like love, are not, and are essentially the opposite; self-less.
That's not selfish?
This needs to be more clear. Self is a mental concept, the way we think of ourselves as extant individual beings. But there is no self-reliant self. Show me someone who claims to be "self-reliant" and take their air-supply away. Or, take away the massive social structure within which they find themselves "self-reliant". Or, give them all of the money in the world. They will be "rich" relative to no one. Everyone else will go back to using tally-sticks, and the "rich" person's money will be worthless. Even those who appear most "self-reliant" in America are wholly dependent on "America" and constant physical laws of the universe. They are dependent on the relativistic nature of human comparitive value. They aren't self-reliant, it is all pretend.
So this could be why people from elsewhere, especially Asian countries with Daoist philosophy that emphasizes our interpdependence, have a hard time dealing with Americans. Because Americans actually believe they are self-reliant, contrary to all evidence.