Is humanity a force of nature?

CavLancer

CavLancer

This aint fertilizer
Joined
Jan 2, 2003
Messages
4,298
Location
Oregon or Philippines
Consider that bird on somewhere, New Zealand I believe. Its flightless and endangered. Seems that since it arrived in NZ it lost the concept 'predator'. So when humans arrived and brought rats and cats the birds were slaughtered. The humans had brought the rats and cats on their boats. So whose fault is it? The humans, or the rats and cats? Consider the "plague rats" that brought the black death to Europe. In fact they were only the carrier, the fleas carried the disease, and in fact the fleas carried the bacteria, so was it the fault of the rats, fleas or bacteria? Or was it the fault of the humans that died for not having a resistance, and did their deaths prepare us today against such a disease by strengthening our immune systems? Will the flightless birds of NZ ever once again find a way to survive predators? Will they in the coming epoch survive the rats and cats by taking to the air, or maybe just learning to run really fast?

Is it our fault that they lost the ability to fly? No, we just brought the rats and cats. We are a force of nature, the plague rats of our age, totally innocent and stupid.

Consider the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, force of nature yes? So what is the difference between humanity and the meteor?

Regrets.

We are the first force of nature with regrets. We not only blame ourselves for bringing the rats and cats, we regret the loss of life during the black plague. We blame ourselves for everything. Even if we fart we emit greenhouse gasses and could potentially spawn regrets. Even not helping in Africa might cause regrets. News tells us we're to blame and should regret.

What's with all the self blame and regrets?

We are a force of nature!

Right?
 
You summed up one aspect of our life right there.

The wise man stated that it's mortality that defines us.
 
I am an advocate of determinism. And determinism says that as impressive our consciousness may be, it is just another coincidental effect of nature. And the only reason we find that so hard to believe and itself so special is
a) It is intangible for our understanding
and
b)The bias of being the direct result of this natural process

Which means: A skyscraper is no more unnatural than a bird-nest.

So yes, I say we are a force of nature.
 
So people are supposed to be proud of inadvertently causing the Kakapo to become critically endangered?
 
So many good replies so quickly! Don't know how I'll keep up. Whiskey_Lord, where do you get "proud" in what I said?
 
I think the term "Force of nature" can mean different things to different people, therefore it is impossible to define whether "humanity" (another ambigous term) can be accepted as a subset of it.
 
SiLL said:
I am an advocate of determinism. And determinism says that as impressive our consciousness may be, it is just another coincidental effect of nature. And the only reason we find that so hard to believe and itself so special is
a) It is intangible for our understanding
and
b)The bias of being the direct result of this natural process

Which means: A skyscraper is no more unnatural than a bird-nest.

So yes, I say we are a force of nature.
Click to expand...

Sounds reasonable. Thing is, lets say a guy gets on a boat and goes and clubs some baby seals. Does being a force of nature give one the right?
 
Shaihulud said:
I think the term "Force of nature" can mean different things to different people, therefore it is impossible to define whether "humanity" (another ambigous term) can be accepted as a subset of it.
Click to expand...

Okay, in that case we better shut down all the forums. :dunno:
 
I don't know. I don't think there's any denying that the Kakapo is endangered due to irresponsibility on our part.
 
I'd rather go with its stupid decision to give up flying when things were easy.:p
 
CavLancer said:
Okay, in that case we better shut down all the forums. :dunno:
Click to expand...
The great thing about the forums is that you could argue that both concept are self evident to everyone who is a human, or some other thing. Seriously, I haven't really thought about what is a 'force of nature" other than conflation with "acts of god", in the legalistic sense.
 
I thought you were getting dangerously close to that cliff edge of 'nothing means anything'.
 
Whiskey_Lord said:
I don't know. I don't think there's any denying that the Kakapo is endangered due to irresponsibility on our part.
Click to expand...

Alternately one could blame the rats which climbed the ropes onto our ships against our will. Why blame yourself when you have so many other choices?:cool:

Whiskey_Lord said:
Um, obviously it lacks the ability to fly because of evolution. This is something that only humans have the ability to influence.
Click to expand...

Humans don't eat the thing to my knowledge.
 
CavLancer said:
Sounds reasonable. Thing is, lets say a guy gets on a boat and goes and clubs some baby seals. Does being a force of nature give one the right?
Click to expand...
As I see it, the "force of nature" as a concept and "right" as a concept are incompatible in objective terms.
The former is a description of what we perceive as "natural". As stated, IMO actually everything is natural and the distinction we still uphold is the product of our bias, not of an objective criteria which makes actual sense in an entirely objective manner.
In contrast, the concept of "rights" is entirely subjective by definition. A product of our way of thinking.
So debating about the justice of nature is pointless. The justice of human action however is not, because it is a reflection of our emotional bias and this bias constitutes values. And those subjective values are all we have to make decisions on and have a life that is enjoyable.

Which further means:
Objectively there is no right or wrong, no rights, no justice, no good or bad.
But as this is a terrible way to live, we have no choice but to resort to a subjective world view, where we have all those things, where we give our emotions room to prosper. In that dimension, "force of nature" becomes a biased concept related to our consciousness, which divides the world in relation to our point of view, our consciousness and our emotional needs. Which does not serve the aim of describing reality (it is no objective part of reality) but the fulfillment of our needs.

Which in conclusion means:
If we decide to see our emotional fulfillment as a worthwhile goal (which is the only worthwhile goal we are "programmed" to seek), we have no choice but to distribute values which have no objective but a subjective basis. And that necessarily includes responsibility and guilt for stuff which actually is just a product of nature carried out by us.
 
Damn the forces of nature for not favouring flight in all cases! Or at least not retruning birds back into dinosaurs, super predatory dinosaurs that will dominate the island as alpha predators. I thought the bird in the OP was the Kiwi? Not the Kakapo. How the hell did the Kiwi who looks so maladroit do better than the kakapo?
 
I'm a force for good in the internet, if that counts.
 
CavLancer said:
Humans don't eat the thing to my knowledge.
Click to expand...

It is relevant. The things stopped flying because they had no predators, that was stupid. Humans have no predators and we started flying. If we had to escape a predator we could get in a plane and fly away. If humans could physically fly that's what we would do, even though nothing is trying to eat us. Think of the traffic jams we could avoid, and a new way to show off and meet girls.

Also we don't eat the flightless birds, the rats do. No matter how they got to NZ, the rats killed the birds, they should have the regrets.

Godwynn said:
I'm a force for good in the internet, if that counts.
Click to expand...

If what you are saying is true we need more of you O Godwynn, many more. Also it does count, somewhere, I'm pretty sure.

SiLL said:
As I see it, the "force of nature" as a concept and "right" as a concept are incompatible in objective terms.
The former is a description of what we perceive as "natural". As stated, IMO actually everything is natural and the distinction we still uphold is the product of our bias, not of an objective criteria which makes actual sense in an entirely objective manner.
In contrast, the concept of "rights" is entirely subjective by definition. A product of our way of thinking.
So debating about the justice of nature is pointless. The justice of human action however is not, because it is a reflection of our emotional bias and this bias constitutes values. And those subjective values are all we have to make decisions on and have a life that is enjoyable.

Which further means:
Objectively there is no right or wrong, no rights, no justice, no good or bad.
But as this is a terrible way to live, we have no choice but to resort to a subjective world view, where we have all those things, where we give our emotions room to prosper. In that dimension, "force of nature" becomes a biased concept related to our consciousness, which divides the world in relation to our point of view, our consciousness and our emotional needs. Which does not serve the aim of describing reality (it is no objective part of reality) but the fulfillment of our needs.

Which in conclusion means:
If we decide to see our emotional fulfillment as a worthwhile goal (which is the only worthwhile goal we are "programmed" to seek), we have no choice but to distribute values which have no objective but a subjective basis. And that necessarily includes responsibility and guilt for stuff which actually is just a product of nature carried out by us.
Click to expand...


Consider the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. Force of nature, just doesn't know it. We know it but that doesn't make us any different from the meteor in that we are a force of nature. The fact that we are somewhat more aware than a space rock gives us the ability to be a 'good' or 'evil' force of nature, but not a right, that comes from random acts of stupidity among a certain subset who are about as bright as a space rock. You may consider that a bias if you wish. We can go club the innocent baby seals or we can protect them. However if a bunch of rats get on a ship in England or Spain or even Portugal and get off in NZ and start to eat flightless birds and at the time we haven't a clue about such stuff, as bright at that point in history as a rock, then I personally refuse to regret it. Besides that, my family is Swiss, didn't sail boats to NZ, and were generally angels throughout history excepting the bankers of which I am not one.
 
We can regret it because knowing the consequences allows us to imagine the alternate scenario, where if we'd shown more wisdom, we'd be better off.

We live in world where doing the right thing actually makes the world a better place.
 
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