oh sorry chips frogot get right on it. and i dont get it i just dont like nazi's is there soemthing wrong with that? i mean nazi's killed 6-8 million jewish people and took my great uncles life do i no have a right to be mad at them? blaming socailists?

Edit: despair, this is a tricky one chips hmm. now i am not perfect at this but you could say despair (wait let me interupt for a sec, i want to make this clear that often our feelings were made for us to survive a long time ago, and it takes forever for humans to get rid of stuff basicly programed into us at the dawn of humanity, take phobias for example. those are to help us survive. back then snakes an eb really nasty and cavemn cant really fix snake bites so a phobia of snakes devolped. and we still have that today. now back on track)as i was saying despair could be designed to make us know our limits, so in the cave ages, as i call them, people pushing themselves to hunt big bears at 12 feet high. and you despair at the fact that they killed a bunch of your friends and family the despair is stoping you from going out and hunting that bear becuase you thnk it is impossilbe, also note that people dont always listen to there feelings and ignore them.

Edited by - [UTFDSQrn on 10/6/2004 12:38:37 PM

you like Nietzsche but you don't like Nazis? oh dear you are a bit mixed up then. they got a lot of their ideas from him and Fraulein N and Adolf were close personal friends, he used to visit her regularly and have tea parties while discussing the *Jewish problem* She bemoaned the fact that her brother's premature death (from aforementioned syphilis) had prevented Der Fuhrer and Der Philosopher from ever meeting. She was sure they would have been firm friends.

i do not like Nietsche as a person, i like some of the stuff he said.

this seems pretty self explanatory from how you are describing it. I have NO prior knowledge of this dude and his beliefs, from your header at the top of the thread it seems like any child who thought about things could understand this.

Human feelings are chemical/electrical signals because thats how information is transmitted around the brain and body, there's bugger all else for it to be. And, seing as though we were all stupid apes, of course all feelings are given to use to enable us to survive and repoduce, the quintessential objectives of life. However, man and dolphin do things for pure pleasure, like make ants kersplode via sunlight and magnifying glass.

So how about Joy?

ah joy good one acron let me get one it!

Edit: Joy, this can have several meanings the first i will try although i dont think it is that good.

1. Joy tells us what is safe. if we are enjoying something it is not likely to kill us. (i dont like that one) i will post the next in one sec

2.(this is pretty bad to, i am saving the best for last.) gives us something to introducve to others gain aceptance into the tribe and increasing our survivail by numbers

3. okay i am putting a bunch together here, it makes us know what is god and of course it makes reprouduction more desirable

Edited by - [UTFDSQrn on 10/6/2004 12:53:33 PM

Edited by - [UTFDSQrn on 10/6/2004 12:54:52 PM

Edited by - [UTFDSQrn on 10/6/2004 12:58:49 PM

"if we are enjoying something it is not likely to kill us"

what, like heroin? carjacking? free-diving? methinks me finds a flaw in that argument.

firstly, you could just write it in one post, that way you dont need to keep go back and re-edit things, we're not all checking things by the second, take your time.

secondly, i dont buy your first 3 answers (in case you've added a fourth a fifth by the time i finish mine) telling us what is safe? we could enjoy stroking a lion, or white water rapids riding, neither are particularly safe but they are enjoyable. Many dangerous things are also traps though. As for making sex more enjoyable, well it doesnt make it any more relevant. Surviving is as vital as reproducing, and they dont make surviving ejoyable (well i mean, its preferable to not surviving, but thats not the point).

Joy and pleasure seem to be, from what I can tell, feelings solely for recreational purposes, for entertainment and keeping people busy between times when we need to concentrate.

@taw i told you that was a bad one

@acron, sometimes i need to go back and check what people said and such it helps me i dunno i am just wierd. no i did not add a fith, sorry . and something that is more enjoyable we are more likley to do, that is why sex is there, in that list i mean. also bear in mind that these things were devolped several thousand years ago

Edited by - [UTFDSQrn on 10/6/2004 1:24:52 PM

Edited by - [UTFDSQrn on 10/6/2004 1:28:47 PM

Sounds like your theory (or Nietsche's theory) is in reallity an immature look at human emotions. I could understand why the Nazi's would like to use a "scientific" theory on human emotions like this to their advantage. How else could a "master race" explain away the feelings of joy/dispair they would feel at the whole sale slaughter of another group of people. The fact that your scientist died because the only way he could experience 50% of his theory (the getting laid part) was to give up the other 50% of his theory (the survival part) is really very amusing.

As for emotions to put under your survival or sex microscope how about GREED. Greed is not about survival (storing nuts for the long winter is not greed) I am talking about the slouthful kind of greed. The "I know I have enough but I just want to take the whole thing because I can" kind of greed.

Sorry Taw I know that you where thinking of the same kind of question I just beat you to it.

pah!

pretty much. i would add that Nietzche's attitude towards sex can't be taken as read; he was very much the product of his upbringing, a late 19th C reactionary Catholic childhood in a household made up of and dominated by devout close female relatives.

sex fascinated and repugnated him, as can be seen by what he wrote about it. the "will to power" is the same thing that Freud called "the pleasure principle" which isn't about hedonistic or sensual pleasure (this is the result of a mistranslation of the German term into English) it's actually the desire or impulse to improve one's standing, put down competitors, to have power to have freedom of choice and to deny it to others - in short to *please* oneself. it is particularly manifest in behaviour relating to mating and sexuality, because this is a very basic and primal instinct.

Greed let me think about that one, and you guys have some good points there. i just cannot explain why i like this thoery besides before you knock it read the book. i am not one to explain it in full detail

This is a really interesting discussion, one I have given significant thought to on my own time, and I have never heard of this guy who thought of this philosophy. The way I started thinking about this whole "emotions are a means for survival" thing is depression pills. When people are feeling depressed they can take a pill that balances the chemicals in their brain properly and they feel better. I thought about this and I guess read somewhere I don't remember where about what other people thought about the subject. It is really depressing if you think too much about it, basically it denotes that the purpose of life is to survive and reproduce, none of our ideas about good and evil would matter. I personally choose not to think in this manner purely because it is too depressing. I know science might prove me wrong but it is a choice I make, sort of a choice for ignorance. Another point is even if this chemical theory is true it makes no difference at all people are still going to do whatever they feel like doing, as Nietsche so aptly demonstrated.
Also I believe I can justify greed in terms of this theory. Greed is the wanting of something, the more you have the easier it will be for you to survive. That was a pretty general statement but if someone comes up with something I can put it in terms of what I said. I would also like to respond to this post by zlo:

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There'd be no reason to care about (or for) the person if he/she becomes temporarily or permanently unable to reproduce, and such things as faithfulness or devotion would be absolutely unacceptable (in fact, you wouldn't even be able to understand what it is)

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There is all the reason to care about the person, you are supposed to protect them and help them survive that is devotion. The understanding what devotion is comes with sentience, we as sentient beings are able to think about these things. Anyway as I said before, while all this may be true, I choose to ignore it because this theory will not affect us in any way. People will still do what they want to do.

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It is really depressing if you think too much about it, basically it denotes that the purpose of life is to survive and reproduce

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I agree with you there GE.

But in the interest of the topic, i submit hate. If ever felt second in power to its opposite. Although there is a fine line

What do you mean by "if ever felt second in power to its opposite.?" I could justify hate in terms of this discussion by saying it gets you fired up to defend yourself or something that you view as important.