the inevitability of love and indifference

[Faust]

i'm starting to go a bit crazy over the fact that love and consequently the possibility of indifference and alienation are, unavoidable in our social interactions. This is a vertible fact that is proven in every social situation. This is making me crazy because apparently these two things are unhealthy?? Perhaps a detached love is the healthiest thing? The fact that we're alone in the universe individually is kind of creepy too isn't it???

[Matt Gregory]

I think thinking of people as indivisible individuals is false. A person is actually the collection of attributes that we designate "person". So, it's impossible to love a person. We love certain attributes in a person, hate other ones and are indifferent to other ones. Sure, there might be some attributes that we love so much that it makes us blind to other ones, like when we're madly in love with someone, but I still don't think that counts as loving a person. That's more like being in love with love itself.

That "we're alone in the universe individually" is also based on the same kind of false ideas.

[Faust]

I think thinking of people as indivisible individuals is false. A person is actually the collection of attributes that we designate "person". So, it's impossible to love a person. We love certain attributes in a person, hate other ones and are indifferent to other ones. Sure, there might be some attributes that we love so much that it makes us blind to other ones, like when we're madly in love with someone, but I still don't think that counts as loving a person. That's more like being in love with love itself.

That "we're alone in the universe individually" is also based on the same kind of false ideas.

well if you are indifferent to major parts of a person, then you can somewhat be indifferent to that person. I'm not talking about being indifferent to "parts" of a person, people are indifferent to "persons" as a whole.

so alienation of "persons" exists if what you're alienating is a major part of the person, such as one's soul. what perplexes me is that love and indifference are unavoidable in social interactions. you say that love is impossible, well what is a conscience then? if love is impossible then indifference is impossible, but this is surely not the case.


looking at psychopaths you might think they're totally indifferent to others and lack a conscience, but how do they act when they're around psychopaths??? how can they live with the world if others become indifferent to them? it would be disadvantageous to be a psychopath, yet they think it's an advantage.

[Matt Gregory]

Faust,

well if you are indifferent to major parts of a person, then you can somewhat be indifferent to that person. I'm not talking about being indifferent to "parts" of a person, people are indifferent to "persons" as a whole.

People can apply zero energy towards other people, sure.

so alienation of "persons" exists if what you're alienating is a major part of the person, such as one's soul. what perplexes me is that love and indifference are unavoidable in social interactions.

You can be exploited without love or indifference. Right now I'm interested in having a conservation with you, so I'm not indifferent to you, but I don't love you either.

you say that love is impossible, well what is a conscience then?

I didn't say that love is altogether impossible, I'm saying that on a deeper level it's impossible to love a person literally. To love a person is a figure of speech. We don't love things and people but what things and people do for us.

if love is impossible then indifference is impossible, but this is surely not the case.

Love takes energy and indifference doesn't. You must mean that to hate a person is impossible, which is true. Again, it's a figure of speech.

looking at psychopaths you might think they're totally indifferent to others and lack a conscience, but how do they act when they're around psychopaths??? how can they live with the world if others become indifferent to them? it would be disadvantageous to be a psychopath, yet they think it's an advantage.

I don't know. How do define psychopath?

[Faust]

People can apply zero energy towards other people, sure.

no, people can not care about others

You can be exploited without love or indifference.

how?

now I'm interested in having a conservation with you, so I'm not indifferent to you, but I don't love you either

conscience is a form of love. so you talking to me is evident that you have a conscience since you want to help me.

I didn't say that love is altogether impossible, I'm saying that on a deeper level it's impossible to love a person literally. To love a person is a figure of speech. We don't love things and people but what things and people do for us

what about conscience? personally i can't imagine living in society without the existence of conscience.

I don't know. How do define psychopath?

psychopaths have no remorse or conscience. they care only about themselves. so I don't know how they can manage to live in a world of other psychopaths.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Psychopaths generally already assume that everyone else is just like them, which fortifies their psychopathic tendencies. They already think that no one else cares about them, so if anyone is going to care about them, they had better care about themselves - and since they think no one else cares about them - really, except maybe in a selfish way - then there is no reason for them to care about others either. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

I believe it is possible to love a person rather than just the individual characteristics, and here is my evidence:

When people fall in romantic love, even their unpleasant characteristics can take on a different spin and be viewed as cute. When something goes wrong with the love, many of these "cute" behaviors can even become a source of annoyance. The behavior did not change, only the perception of love.

When people have a perpetual love, they become indifferent to certain behaviors that might annoy or disgust them coming from someone else. A bad smell becomes tolerable, passing gas is just a body function, and picking teeth is no longer considered rude - just as a few examples.

Perhaps a detached love is the healthiest thing?

I believe it is. A detached love also requires little enough energy that it can be held perpetually.

The fact that we're alone in the universe individually is kind of creepy too isn't it???

Whether or not you are alone depends on how you define things. Yes, you are born alone, you die alone, and all that happens in between is your individual solitary experience, no matter how many people are around you or how close they get. On the other hand, how can you possibly be alone when there are more than 6.6 billion other people on the planet with you? There is also the definition that we are all One - which would make us All alone because we are Everything that is. Then when you zoom back to your individual unit, you see there is no difference between how silly it may seem to think of us All of us being alone, and the individual being alone with so many cells, normal flora, charges of energy, etc. that make up the individual.

Creepy is just a perception. Life is as creepy as death, or as wondrous, or as fleeting or long - however - as your perceptions themselves. Considering what a perception is made of, such value judgments as "creepy" are shown to have the substance of gossamer.

[Nick]

I believe it is possible to love a person rather than just the individual characteristics, and here is my evidence:

Since you must be talking about emotional attachement here when you say the word love, (if you weren't there would be no reason to defend your position of loving another person as opposed to the all encompasing love that is Absolute Love), there would be nothing to "love" if not for someone's individual characteristics.

When people fall in romantic love, even their unpleasant characteristics can take on a different spin and be viewed as cute. When something goes wrong with the love, many of these "cute" behaviors can even become a source of annoyance. The behavior did not change, only the perception of love.

The thing that changed is your perception of that person's characteristics you were once romantically in love with, or in other words emotionally attached to. Not the behavior or perception of love. Basically the characteristics that you once thought were cute, now annoy the shit out of you. With that said your first defense of not loving someone's individual characteristics is in shambles.

When people have a perpetual love, they become indifferent to certain behaviors that might annoy or disgust them coming from someone else. A bad smell becomes tolerable, passing gas is just a body function, and picking teeth is no longer considered rude - just as a few examples.

Actually it works like this... At first you are indifferent towards all of those things you mentioned, then you become emotionally attached to this unrealistic personality you project on to the person you are "in love with" causing you to become upset by certain attributes that don't comply with the imaginary person you have convieved of in your mind. Then over time reality sets in and you realize the person you are in love with is just a figment of your imagination and the actual person will never live up to it. So this perpetual love you speak of is actually just a compromise between what your imagination has thought up, and the actual person you are supposedly in love with. At this point all you are doing is sticking out with this person because they are your best option. If the circumstances were proper you would leave this person in a heart beat to emotionally attach yourself to someone else who fits what your imaginary ideal lover is like.

I believe it is. A detached love also requires little enough energy that it can be held perpetually.

Deatched love is contradictory to the core. Romantic love is emotional attachment. If there is no emotional attachment to the person you are in love with you would love them just as much as you would love a corpse. Which in that case there would be no point to make a distinction between being in love with one person as opposed to something, or everything else.

Whether or not you are alone depends on how you define things.

More accurately it depends on how wise one is.

Yes, you are born alone, you die alone,

We are being reborn seamlessly in each and every moment, which certainly isn't an isolated experience, same goes for the birth which sparks your consciousness and the death that ends it.

and all that happens in between is your individual solitary experience, no matter how many people are around you or how close they get.

I'm not sure about what you mean here, but there are certainly other things "happening" aside from my own consciousness existing.

On the other hand, how can you possibly be alone when there are more than 6.6 billion other people on the planet with you?

It's very easy to feel alone no matter how many people are on this planet.

There is also the definition that we are all One - which would make us All alone because we are Everything that is. Then when you zoom back to your individual unit, you see there is no difference between how silly it may seem to think of us All of us being alone, and the individual being alone with so many cells, normal flora, charges of energy, etc. that make up the individual.

The fact of the matter is, we are not everything. We are each unique and individual beings who, in some circumstances, are completely misunderstood by everyone around us and sometimes one might not even fully understanding their own self, which can make for a very lonely and depressing existence. The Absolute Truth that we are all a part of the totality is entirely irrelevant to this person's consciousness in the manner you are speaking, which I don't find silly, but rather disturbing. Only cause and effect will determine whether this person becomes enlightened enough to their correct their diluted state of mind.

Creepy is just a perception. Life is as creepy as death, or as wondrous, or as fleeting or long - however - as your perceptions themselves. Considering what a perception is made of, such value judgments as "creepy" are shown to have the substance of gossamer.

The way we percieves things defines the reality of our existence, hardly what I would call a gossamer.

[clyde]

Psychopaths generally already assume that everyone else is just like them . . .

Elizabeth;

This caught my eye tonight. I have often remarked that people in general see others as they see themselves. For example, honest people believe that other people are generally honest, while dishonest people expect other people to be dishonest. No doubt this holds for psychopaths.

The other thing I wanted to share with you is a fascinating talk by Helen Fisher on "The science of love, and the future of women":
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/16

clyde

[Faust]

Then when you zoom back to your individual unit, you see there is no difference between how silly it may seem to think of us All of us being alone, and the individual being alone with so many cells, normal flora, charges of energy, etc. that make up the individual.

uhh what??? I think that we're spiritually alone as individuals no matter how many people there are, we bleed alone. I don't know how our body cells are supposed to make us not alone in this way.

Creepy is just a perception. Life is as creepy as death, or as wondrous, or as fleeting or long - however - as your perceptions themselves. Considering what a perception is made of, such value judgments as "creepy" are shown to have the substance of gossamer.

not when you're talking about being spiritually alone. alienation is all the more creepy BECAUSE communication is possible between individuals. so it's like, you can almost not be alone, but in the end you are.

[Faust]

Deatched love is contradictory to the core. Romantic love is emotional attachment. If there is no emotional attachment to the person you are in love with you would love them just as much as you would love a corpse. Which in that case there would be no point to make a distinction between being in love with one person as opposed to something, or everything else.

what about conscience? I consider conscience to be a form of love, yet it is not an emotional attachment.

More accurately it depends on how wise one is.

meaning? the more wise you are the more alone you are I'm guessing?

We are being reborn seamlessly in each and every moment, which certainly isn't an isolated experience, same goes for the birth which sparks your consciousness and the death that ends it.

how are we reborn in each moment? and how isint' it isolated? it may not be isolated in terms of causality, but spiritually it is.

I'm not sure about what you mean here, but there are certainly other things "happening" aside from my own consciousness existing.

it means that we're spiritually alone idiot. it means that there is a level of indifference and loneliness that permeates throughout humanity.

It's very easy to feel alone no matter how many people are on this planet.

you just answered your own question.

The fact of the matter is, we are not everything. We are each unique and individual beings who, in some circumstances, are completely misunderstood by everyone around us and sometimes one might not even fully understanding their own self, which can make for a very lonely and depressing existence. The Absolute Truth that we are all a part of the totality is entirely irrelevant to this person's consciousness in the manner you are speaking, which I don't find silly, but rather disturbing. Only cause and effect will determine whether this person becomes enlightened enough to their correct their diluted state of mind.

however, indifference still permeates

[Matt Gregory]

Clyde wrote to Elizabeth:

The other thing I wanted to share with you is a fascinating talk by Helen Fisher on "The science of love, and the future of women":
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/16

Thanks Clyde, that was pretty interesting. I disagree with a lot of Fisher's conclusions, though. For example, I think she's wrong when she says romantic love is not an emotion because it's a drive. I think all emotions are drives. But I like her three-brain-systems theory; that's pretty good. She might be a good guest on the Reasoning Show to discuss love.

[Matt Gregory]

Nick wrote to Elizabeth:

Since you must be talking about emotional attachement here when you say the word love, (if you weren't there would be no reason to defend your position of loving another person as opposed to the all encompasing love that is Absolute Love), there would be nothing to "love" if not for someone's individual characteristics.

That's a good point. The only knowledge we have of a person or thing is the characteristics he/she/it presents to us.

[Matt Gregory]

Faust,

People can apply zero energy towards other people, sure.

no, people can not care about others

Well, I think we're not communicating very well because I'm looking at love as a type of emotional energy. If interacting with someone doesn't give me an emotional spike then I wouldn't say I love (or hate) them, but I'm indifferent to them.

MG: You can be exploited without love or indifference.

F: how?

I gave you an example, but you disagree with it.

MG: now I'm interested in having a conservation with you, so I'm not indifferent to you, but I don't love you either

F: conscience is a form of love. so you talking to me is evident that you have a conscience since you want to help me.

I wasn't thinking of love that broadly, but alright. I think I'm taking my idea of love and applying it to situations to reach my conclusions, whereas you are looking at situations and using them to define love, and therefore coming to different conclusions. That's where I think our disconnect lies.

MG: I didn't say that love is altogether impossible, I'm saying that on a deeper level it's impossible to love a person literally. To love a person is a figure of speech. We don't love things and people but what things and people do for us

F: what about conscience? personally i can't imagine living in society without the existence of conscience.

MG: I don't know. How do define psychopath?

F: psychopaths have no remorse or conscience. they care only about themselves. so I don't know how they can manage to live in a world of other psychopaths.

I don't know, it depends on how broad the set of values is with which you define "conscience". If we're talking about conscience in regards to Truth, then we're already living in a society of psychopaths, but if you are limiting to physical violence or something, then yeah that would be pretty miserable. I guess I don't really see what you're getting at with this tangent on psychopaths. Being indifferent to people doesn't make a person psychopathic in my mind, it just means that you let them go about their business and you go about yours independently. You must mean an indifference where you go about your own business even at the expense of others. Well, yeah, I would agree that living in a society of people like that would suck donkey balls.

[clyde]

Matt;

I’m pleased that you found the talk “pretty interesting”. So did I.

I’m not qualified to argue about Fisher’s work, analysis, or conclusions, but I will offer my opinion regarding romantic love as a drive, not an emotion.

We call hunger a drive and even though we often satisfy the feeling of hunger quickly, if not satisfied, the feeling of hunger will continue for hours and days until it is satisfied. And the same can be said for thirst.

On the other hand emotions like anger are feelings that arise and pass away relatively quickly and there is not satisfying an emotion, though we sometimes (wrongly) believe that retribution will satisfy our anger. And the same can be said for sadness.

Romantic love, as I understand it, is a feeling that arises that will continue for days and weeks and longer; and is satisfied by locating and bonding with an object of romantic love who, at the very least, accepts one.

Do no harm,
clyde

[Faust]

Well, I think we're not communicating very well because I'm looking at love as a type of emotional energy. If interacting with someone doesn't give me an emotional spike then I wouldn't say I love (or hate) them, but I'm indifferent to them.

what do you mean by indifference? To me 'indifference' usually means not caring about their well-being, literally being indifferent.

I gave you an example, but you disagree with it.

which one?

I wasn't thinking of love that broadly, but alright. I think I'm taking my idea of love and applying it to situations to reach my conclusions, whereas you are looking at situations and using them to define love, and therefore coming to different conclusions. That's where I think our disconnect lies.

what i'm saying is that conscience is a form of love because we usually care about other people's well-being. This IS love at its basic definition. Now what I'm asking is that, can you still care about someone while still being indifferent to their suffering?

yes by conscience I mean the desire to relieve them of their suffering through the finding of Truth, which is also, a form of generally caring about the person's well-being. I brought up psychopaths because I wouldn't be able to live around people who don't care about my general well-being, who would be indifferent and not call an ambulance if I suddenly got a heart attack. So psychopaths are digging their own graves out of Karma. When I say being indifferent, I don't mean letting them go about their business, I mean not caring about their general well-being, especially when they're suffering. I guess my second golden question would be, when is compassion appropriate and when is it spiritually detrimental?

[Matt Gregory]

Clyde,

I’m not qualified to argue about Fisher’s work, analysis, or conclusions,

Sure you are. You have a mind that makes judgements. That's the only qualification you need around here.

but I will offer my opinion regarding romantic love as a drive, not an emotion.

We call hunger a drive and even though we often satisfy the feeling of hunger quickly, if not satisfied, the feeling of hunger will continue for hours and days until it is satisfied. And the same can be said for thirst.

On the other hand emotions like anger are feelings that arise and pass away relatively quickly and there is not satisfying an emotion, though we sometimes (wrongly) believe that retribution will satisfy our anger. And the same can be said for sadness.

Romantic love, as I understand it, is a feeling that arises that will continue for days and weeks and longer; and is satisfied by locating and bonding with an object of romantic love who, at the very least, accepts one.

I think of our psychological properties in terms of evolution, biology and chemistry. A biological organism feels hunger because there is some chemical or protein being released in its body that is signaling its brain to feel hunger in order to motivate the organism to eat. I see emotions the same way: as chemicals that signal the organism to react to its environment in some way. That's basically what my reasoning is based on.

I don't think it's that useful to combine the satisfaction of the drive with the drive itself because we can't really look at a drive and determine how it will be satisfied by the organism. There's no necessary connection there. A simple example is often we feel hungry when we're really just thirsty, so the hunger drive doesn't necessarily have to be satisfied by eating food. So a drive is merely some chemical thing that prompts the organism to do something (but the organism decides how to deal with it).

I guess if I go this route, though, then I have to call hunger an emotion. But I guess I do think of hunger as an emotion. If an emotion is a non-rational response to something, then I think hunger fits. But if an emotion is an irrational response to something, a response that prompted with false thoughts, then I guess that would exclude hunger because hunger is definitely non-rational since it's not prompted with thoughts. With romantic love though, is it a non-rational response or an irrational response? I'd have to say it's irrational because it's prompted by thoughts, which would make it an emotion. If you were placed on a desert isle and thereby prevented from thinking of (and believing in) the possibility of falling in love, then it would be impossible to fall in love.

So, I guess I do see a difference between emotions and drives, but I still disagree with Fisher because romantic love is an emotion by my reasoning.

[Matt Gregory]

Elizabeth,

I meant to reply to this earlier, but I've been jumping around and confusing myself.

I believe it is possible to love a person rather than just the individual characteristics, and here is my evidence:

When people fall in romantic love, even their unpleasant characteristics can take on a different spin and be viewed as cute. When something goes wrong with the love, many of these "cute" behaviors can even become a source of annoyance. The behavior did not change, only the perception of love.

Okay, I can see how this might happen but I've never been that deep into it. That sounds more like a love of love to me, where the drug of love is just knocking the person upside the head and making him unconscious.

When people have a perpetual love, they become indifferent to certain behaviors that might annoy or disgust them coming from someone else. A bad smell becomes tolerable, passing gas is just a body function, and picking teeth is no longer considered rude - just as a few examples.

I think this phenomenon has to do with ignoring the bad and concentrating on the good in order to make life as pleasant as possible. I still think it's the benefits of being with the person that are loved. I think one big benefit is familiarity with the person, which makes it seem like it's the person that's loved, but familiarity is a big comfort to us.

[Matt Gregory]

Well, I think we're not communicating very well because I'm looking at love as a type of emotional energy. If interacting with someone doesn't give me an emotional spike then I wouldn't say I love (or hate) them, but I'm indifferent to them.

what do you mean by indifference?

Just non-emotional towards someone. Not loving or hating them.

To me 'indifference' usually means not caring about their well-being, literally being indifferent.

Okay, but "caring about someone's well-being" is pretty vague. "Caring" can be anything from feeling sad about someone's suffering to actively seeking out suffering people and doing the best you can to relieve them of it. "Well-being" also has a range of interpretations: physical, mental, spiritual, sexual, familial, financial, etc, etc.

MG: I gave you an example, but you disagree with it.

F: which one?

You asked if there was a situation free of love and indifference and I said I don't love you and I am also not indifferent to you because I want to have this discussion with you. I am exploiting something you have: your intelligence and your taking the time to discuss this with me and so forth. I was trying to say that any exploitive situation would be free of both love and indifference.

I don't see this as the result of a pang of conscience to help you because I don't see myself as primarily doing this to help you, but mostly to help myself by stimulating my mind with new ideas from others and by practicing writing and explaining myself and so forth. If I help stimulate your mind too, that's great, but it's not foremost in my mind when I post to this forum. I'm obviously not against it either, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I care about it unless I was really trying to puff myself up. I wouldn't say someone cares about something unless they make a special effort towards it in some way.

MG: I wasn't thinking of love that broadly, but alright. I think I'm taking my idea of love and applying it to situations to reach my conclusions, whereas you are looking at situations and using them to define love, and therefore coming to different conclusions. That's where I think our disconnect lies.

F: what i'm saying is that conscience is a form of love because we usually care about other people's well-being. This IS love at its basic definition.

Well I don't normally think of love that way. I think of it as emotional attachment.

Now what I'm asking is that, can you still care about someone while still being indifferent to their suffering?

I think this question is too vague and open to interpretation to answer in any remotely succinct way.

yes by conscience I mean the desire to relieve them of their suffering through the finding of Truth, which is also, a form of generally caring about the person's well-being. I brought up psychopaths because I wouldn't be able to live around people who don't care about my general well-being, who would be indifferent and not call an ambulance if I suddenly got a heart attack. So psychopaths are digging their own graves out of Karma. When I say being indifferent, I don't mean letting them go about their business, I mean not caring about their general well-being, especially when they're suffering.

You mean when they're suffering right in front of you or suffering even outside of your awareness?

I guess my second golden question would be, when is compassion appropriate and when is it spiritually detrimental?

I would have to say that generally speaking it's appropriate when it would help the person think and detrimental when it would cause them to go deeper into attachment and hinder their thinking.

[Matt Gregory]

I think the best part of that talk was when she said, "We're not an animal that was built to be happy, we're an animal that was built to reproduce."

The worst part was when she said, "A world without love is a deadly place", which of course brought on a round of applause.

[Matt Gregory]

She didn't seem to get why mysteriousness in a person helps us fall in love with them. It's because romantic love is based on a dream. Everything you fall in love with in a person is entirely in your own head, and your lover's qualities and behavior either match and deepen the dream or mismatch and wake you up from the dream. If a person doesn't reveal much about themselves and they remain mysterious then it reduces the chance of informing their lover of a mismatch and waking them up out of their dream.

[Nick]

what about conscience? I consider conscience to be a form of love, yet it is not an emotional attachment.

What does conscience have to do with what I said, and why do you consider conscience to be a form of love? One's conscience is only as wise as the person.

meaning? the more wise you are the more alone you are I'm guessing?

The wiser you are the less your desire to form emotional bonds with other people becomes, which in turn means you spend more of your time alone. Although I wasn't talking about being alone, I was talking about the feeling of loneliness. A feeling which also diminishes as one's wisdom increases.

how are we reborn in each moment?

Are you the same person now as you were ten years ago? Are you the same person you were ten seconds ago? Are you the same person you were one nano-second ago? Our memory creates for us an illussion that we somehow exist as the same person continuously. Although under closer inspection you will begin to see that we are a different person each and every moment, or more to the point, we don't even exist.

and how isint' it isolated?

Because everything impacts us in one way or another. The fact that the Earth wasn't wiped out by a giant asteroid today means we are allowed to exist in the manner that we currently do.

it may not be isolated in terms of causality, but spiritually it is.

How is one's spirtuality not affected by causality?

it means that we're spiritually alone idiot. it means that there is a level of indifference and loneliness that permeates throughout humanity.

Would you mind elaborating on these claims of yours?

you just answered your own question.

And what question would that be?

however, indifference still permeates

What does that have to do with anything I just said?

[David Quinn]

Matt wrote:

She didn't seem to get why mysteriousness in a person helps us fall in love with them. It's because romantic love is based on a dream. Everything you fall in love with in a person is entirely in your own head, and your lover's qualities and behavior either match and deepen the dream or mismatch and wake you up from the dream. If a person doesn't reveal much about themselves and they remain mysterious then it reduces the chance of informing their lover of a mismatch and waking them up out of their dream.

That's a good piece of reasoning there. It is the reason why women like to be contradictory in their thoughts and behaviour, and why they praise that quality in others. It helps break down everyone's clarity of mind and fosters the conditions for love, which is the realm they love to hide in.

-

[Ataraxia]

I think the best part of that talk was when she said, "We're not an animal that was built to be happy, we're an animal that was built to reproduce."

This isn't a bad little documentary on Schopenhauer's 'will to life'


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px9fx6vUQgA

[Faust]

Okay, but "caring about someone's well-being" is pretty vague. "Caring" can be anything from feeling sad about someone's suffering to actively seeking out suffering people and doing the best you can to relieve them of it. "Well-being" also has a range of interpretations: physical, mental, spiritual, sexual, familial, financial, etc, etc.

yes all of this comprises of conscience, I take it you care about other people's general well-being? If someone was dying would you call an ambulance?

I don't see this as the result of a pang of conscience to help you because I don't see myself as primarily doing this to help you, but mostly to help myself by stimulating my mind with new ideas from others and by practicing writing and explaining myself and so forth. If I help stimulate your mind too, that's great, but it's not foremost in my mind when I post to this forum. I'm obviously not against it either, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I care about it unless I was really trying to puff myself up. I wouldn't say someone cares about something unless they make a special effort towards it in some way.

So you have no care at all to help people end their suffering and become enlightened??? You're just a psychopath that likes to exploit people without caring about them? Trying to puff yourself up??? Calling for an ambulance for someone isn't a special effort.

Well I don't normally think of love that way. I think of it as emotional attachment.

and that's why you're wrong. love isn't an emotional attachment, that doesn't explain the quality of love. Conscience, is the only honest and tangible evidence of love. Caring about people is the most basic and truthful definition of love. Basically, if you go around walking down the street, are you indifferent to everyone that if someone needed help you wouldn't help them as best you could? I think that vanity being unavoidable when you're around people makes conscience unavoidable. You can control vanity, you can keep your internal state from being negatively affected by vanity through your knowledge of causation, but you can never REMOVE your vanity. Removing your vanity would require you to think that other people don't exist. Vanity is a wretched disease, because it occupies one's mind. one only needs to eat in public, or look at others who are eating in public, to experience the monstrosity that is vanity.

I think this question is too vague and open to interpretation to answer in any remotely succinct way.

no it isn't. i think the answer lies on the very thin line between tough love and putting up with bullshit.

You mean when they're suffering right in front of you or suffering even outside of your awareness?

in front of you

I would have to say that generally speaking it's appropriate when it would help the person think and detrimental when it would cause them to go deeper into attachment and hinder their thinking.

if you think like this it shows that you have a conscience about caring about others, which again is the only honest form of love.

[Faust]

why do you consider conscience to be a form of love? One's conscience is only as wise as the person.

the only tangible definition of love to me is, caring about others. I mean that's the most basic and honest and real definition of love that you can get. If you generally care about someone's well-being, that's love. The more wise you are, the better conscience you have, meaning you want others to become wise since you care about them.

The wiser you are the less your desire to form emotional bonds with other people becomes, which in turn means you spend more of your time alone. Although I wasn't talking about being alone, I was talking about the feeling of loneliness. A feeling which also diminishes as one's wisdom increases.

okay, but conscience is still there without an emotional bond is it not? Do you walk around not caring about others? If someone needs an ambulance would you call for it?

Are you the same person now as you were ten years ago? Are you the same person you were ten seconds ago? Are you the same person you were one nano-second ago? Our memory creates for us an illussion that we somehow exist as the same person continuously. Although under closer inspection you will begin to see that we are a different person each and every moment, or more to the point, we don't even exist.

Actually last time I checked, my character hasn't changed for quite a while. I don't think people change actually, that is, their personalities and character don't change substantially after they've become teenagers. After teenager, all your desires and hobbies and passions will probably stick with you for a long time, if not forever. My character to be a philosopher is certainly not going to change, and this philosophy occured to me about 3 years ago. Likewise, my friends' personalities will probably remain the same, it's hard to convince believers of God into non-believers, and vice versa. Why do we not exist?

Because everything impacts us in one way or another. The fact that the Earth wasn't wiped out by a giant asteroid today means we are allowed to exist in the manner that we currently do.

but nothing is going to change the fact that we're spiritually alone and detached from others is it? We always die alone.

How is one's spirtuality not affected by causality?

because we're individually alone and detached and at times indifferent to others. Causality is just a dead, cold fact, it doesn't have a soul to connect us permanently with one another, so that we don't die alone. It's funny how philosophers here boast of not having emotional attachments to others, but this requires being indifferent to a certain degree!! It's like buddhism, where it boats of ending suffering, yes by being indifferent to others. To not be affected by callousness, we must inflict callousness.

Would you mind elaborating on these claims of yours?

do you not die alone? does indifference not exist among humans? We like to think that we are bleeding for something, bleeding together, our humanity. but we're not, we're bleeding alone.

philosophers think they can live fully solitary lives and end loneliness. but they haven't done it because they know it's impossible. Talking on Genius Forums is not being fully solitary. I would like to see someone go to the woods and live a completely alone and solitary life for a few years. unfortunately we are social animals, even Nietzsche knew that. So it's quite wrong of people here that boast of ending their loneliness, for you are lying.