|
Aeneas
Transdimensional Tourist

Registered: 08/01/09
Posts: 20
Last seen: 5 months, 20 days
|
Re: Selfishness [Re: Linja]
#12390857 - 04/14/10 08:40 AM (13 years, 10 months ago) |
|
|
Perhaps it is not so much selfishness as it is self-centered behavior that is the cause of problems. When one empowers the ego to the point where most of the thoughts are focused on one's sole individual benefit, then selfishness becomes debilitating. Even in selflessness, because of the interconnected reality in which we live in, an act of selflessness actually ends of benefiting oneself so it never seems to be a reality where one does something positive and gets no benefit from, because what goes around comes around.
Linja, you say that without selfishness we would not survive but there is a second position of awareness that has perhaps just as much validation towards it and that would be that without empathy, we would not have survived this long. Check this out: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091208155309.htm
With empathy, you do not expect anything in return. It is an inherent feeling that you have only a little control over and I feel that it is closely connected to the idea of selflessness.
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
|
Quote:
Noteworthy said: I think it is usually safe to assume something does not exist if there is no good argument to say that it does? this does not mean that things do not exist until proven true. It just means that we can treat things as not existing if there is no public reason to think that they do.
Bingo
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
|
Linja




Registered: 05/30/06
Posts: 475
Loc: Melbourne
Last seen: 11 years, 17 days
|
Re: Selfishness [Re: Aeneas]
#12392221 - 04/14/10 01:31 PM (13 years, 10 months ago) |
|
|
I agree that empathy is important for survival, read some of my posts in the thread:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/12388733/fpart/2
I think that empathy is an important part of understanding what others feel and want, so as to be able to meet these needs and be accepted into a society. Without empathy, one would probably be shunned.
It is the broader application of this empathy and the creation of a society that could be argued to be inherently selfish, but as you said, the interconnectedness of things makes it hard to commit something that could be interpreted as altruistic, and nearly everything can be argued as being selfish depending on what angle you look at it from.
|
|