Sex.

The male praying mantis may continue to thrust after his head has been chewed off but I think the vast majority of beneficial sexual mutations are related to perceptions that the activity is increasing one's distance from nonexistence.

-like with having friends in general we perceive we've got a bit more power/security, more so the closer a friend they are...
-information, what's underneath those clothes? etc... And to some extent we do look exactly how we are... or better put, we have an ability to decipher looks...
-usually men liking to feel in charge, a sex game where they feel more powerful than they otherwise actually are. Unfortunately is rape not just a question of a greater degree of such a thing?
-...I dunno... information (=power=increasing distance from nonexistence), feeling connected (=power=etc), etc...
-altruism, making the other person happy in turn, showering them with love, makes us happy....
-...and why are the most regular features so often considered the most beautiful? Ugly stuff. It's about conformity. And, having our genes combine in a way that will result in a hopefully well conformed child. And so short women always want tall men for example. And so hindus value fair features (caucasians are the most average looking). Japanese die their hair red. Black men love white women... and asian women... But it doesn't work in reverse so well because the power balance gets out of whack. The poor asian man feeling too physically inferior to a black woman. (And there has to be a balance though... what is it again that the women generally has in order to keep things from getting too out of balance? I don't remember at the moment... was it sex? Ugh, I dunno. Oversimplifying.)

The perception of beauty is tied right into conformity. We are constantly controlled by the need to conform without realizing it.

There is still something of the headless praying mantis thrusting away tied into human and animal sex... I think of certain things and get an erection. There's no sense to it but it feels good. Oh well.

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What were the three main negative emotions? Anger, sadness and....???? Luckily I wrote this down somewhere... But anyway, sparked by rideflame's blog to reremember...
We feel sad when we want others to help us. We feel anger when we perceive someone is closeminded.

Not remembering the third primary negative emotion is the number one reason I have this blog. No need to look it up right now though. If I ever came along and found this blog deleted (which the owners reserve the right to do at any time) that would be awful.

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My first day as a nurse was yesterday. Went well. I can't quite put my finger on just why I like work so well. Was wondering if being the only guy harkens back to some primitive thing, where I vaguely feel like the alpha male. I don't think so... There are men who work there on night shift. I switch to night shift very soon. They seem just as nice as the women. I really don't think I care that I'm surrounded by people who physically are female. But there perhaps is something about the different way of thinking. Occasionally it hits me how bizarre it is, for me of all people to be a nurse, surrounded by women. I am not the sort of person one would expect to be a nurse. Somehow it seems to be working out really well.

Definitions

The seven 'deadly sins': Pride, Anger, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, Greed

Gluttony, greed and (excessive) lust are all variants of the same thing. They're all attempts to move away from nonexistence which end up being excessive. (Although I'm not too sure when (if ever) lust gets excessive exactly. Fellini's Casanova?) They are straightforward attempts at happiness that are failing.

Sloth or laziness is an existential problem where you can't really see the point in doing anything. No matter what you do you won't actually be moving away from nonexistence so why bother?

Envy is where you see that someone else has some valuable thing that you perceive possessing would move you away from nonexistence. Envy is tied into hate/anger as we're hardly planning on using reason to take away the thing from the person. Instead some form of force is used.

Anger is about wanting to use force because you perceive that some person stands between you and decreasing your distance from nonexistence. And you think they can't be reasoned with.

(Excessive) Pride is more interesting. The dichotomy is pride versus humility. But it's quite close to being closedminded versus openminded. Excessive pride is like arrogance, being too sure of yourself, too convinced you're right, that you're wonderful, etc. All of that is basically just closemindedness. While being humble instead can mean seeing that you could be wrong, that you hardly know anything, etc, which means basically being openminded.

But of course what they really wanted was for people to bow down to god, considering him all powerful and themselves as disgusting bugs in comparison. This idea entirely trumped the openminded/closeminded idea that would have been of such great use. So people think of pride versus humility and they picture some imaginary god that is so so great compared to them. They're pitiful in comparison and should meakly follow the rules he has already laid out for them. And so that's what they do instead of seeing pride versus humility as being the same as closedminded versus openminded. And so they're humble before an imaginary god but arrogant before all real people.

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'Unhappiness' is the perception of moving closer towards nonexistence. The essential types are anger, fear, sadness and existential nihilism (boredom, laziness...). When you perceive that you are moving towards nonexistence is there any alternative than these 4 essentials?

To try to overcome your feelings of anger (or hate, frustration, annoyance...) you can at least recognize what's going on. You think someone can't be reasoned with so you're subverting to your monkey ancestry and wanting to basically beat the crap out of them to force them to do as you say.

It is at least better to feel anger then fear. With anger you've at least got an idea what you actually want to do to remedy the situation. Some entity is causing you to move closer to nonexistence and they need some force! Fear is on the other hand perceiving that you're moving towards nonexistence and being very doubtful about what action you can possibly take.

Sadness is the form of fear where you want help from others. Sadness is better then fear right up till others reject you/will not give you any help. Although at least then you've got a bit more to work with to turn instead to anger...

One can get away from anger, fear and sadness by going instead to existential nihilism. (Instead of being stressed, realize that life is ultimately a short and meaningless thing.) And then when they get sick of that they can hopefully instead go get stressed out again.

Otherwise one can attempt to change their perception of the situation. (By actually changing the situation or by some other way.)

I'm not entirely sure where disgust/revulsion belongs. It is the considering of some thing that we perceive would move us closer to nonexistence but that we don't really perceive it to be that much of a real threat. And/or we take a step back and try to look at it 'objectively'. It seems it can be tied to fear or anger.

The motivation for every action of humans is to increase 'happiness'. Where happiness is defined as the perception of moving away from death. Every single thing you do, reading, gluttony, friendship, accumlate money, sleep, love, have plants in your house, take drugs, work to make other people happy, even caring about animals that you'll never meet, every little thing.

Except sex? I dunno about sex. Will have to think about it. There is surviving and then there is the instinctual drive to reproduce. 'Instinctual drives' though are normally about mistaken perceptions.

Do 'instincts' exist at all? I ask yet again. We have our rational mind and then whatever else is up there is outside of our rational mind. For every action the rational mind is actually the origin. Nothing can be dismissed to the hypothalmus or amygdala, etc. ((Or can it?) OK your blood pressure increase because of something you ate as opposed to a flight of fight response...etc. But the former is not an 'action'.) The baby suckling 'instinct' is an action but it is not an instinct. It is based on an attempt at increasing happiness. I don't know how exactly. But I think it follows that it must be so. Claiming anything is instincts is somewhat like saying 'godidit'. Endless actions, possibly all, have an element of the unconscious. But none are 'instinctual'. All things originate in attempts at rational thought. All actions originate in attempts at increasing 'happiness'.

Are animals sentient or are their actions the result of 'instincts'? They are the result of attempts at rational thought where the illogical directions that still manage to produce beneficial actions get passed down through evolution. The originating attempt at rational thought may have nothing at all to do with the beneficial action. But there is conscious and unconscious in animals the same as human. They have the same parts. They have conscious thought just at a lower ratio of conscious to unconscious most likely and thus more illogical actions. Still the basis is attempts at rational thought to increase 'happiness'.

Bleh.

We act in order to increase 'happiness'. We are happy when we perceive that we are moving away from death, no matter how untrue it may be. We have interest in increasing other people's happiness because we perceive that their increased happiness increases our own.

Fear. The chop chop against the tick tock. A balance? Or the eradication of both?

Without fear there can still be nihilism. Getting rid of fear is not enough. Nihilism can conquer fear. Fear can conquer nihilism. One could spend a lifetime bouncing between the two...

But it's not an either or. There are other options.

There is actually personally moving away from death. There is helping others literally move away from death and thus having the perception (not necessarily remotely true) that this is causing yourself to also move away from it. These are the primary concerns.

(sigh) Then there is personally being 'happy' through perceptions that aren't necessarily true. But the most happiness comes from choosing actions that result in longer term perceptions of moving away from death. Gluttony, drugs, etc doesn't do so much. Plants in your house? Sure, why not. Friendships. Sure. Love. Yes. Things that aren't necessarily actually moving you away from death at all. Plants not so much. (They are symbolic of a world full of life. Straight to the unconscious, reduces fear, IOW, reduces concerns that you might be moving towards death.) Love and friendships potentially really are.

Making a world with more love and friendships in turn could greatly increase your own 'happiness'.

The opposite of happiness is fear and sadness and nihilism.

I feel fear and nihilism. Fear is the perception that you're moving towards death and you ought to be doing something about it but you don't know what. Nihilism is that there's nothing at all you can actually do to move away from death.

Sadness and crying go together. Crying is a greater degree of sadness. They are where you perceive you're moving towards death and you are asking for help from someone outside of yourself. Whether or not you rationally really are meaning to ask for help has nothing to do with it of course.

Anti-happiness is fear, sadness and nihilism.

Can one actually manage to cry when they're only asking for help (mostly unconsciously of course) from other people as opposed to help from god? Hard to believe it could be possible.

What does it all come down to? False perceptions that you're moving away from death. Bad choices. How to correct them? Just make people smarter. That's all. But of nihilism? Sometimes false perceptions are the best possible choice...

.....

I don't use emotions to ask for help I guess. Thus I never actually get sad. At least I don't think I ever feel sad. I know I don't cry unless it's a movie. My anti-happiness it would seem is solely made up of fear and nihilism. But much more fear than nihilism. Nihilism is like boredom. The creativity killing thoughts are also the nihilistic thoughts.

Ultimately I prefer nihilism to fear. I happily kill the fear, kill the chop chop with the tick tock if possible. (That is if I can't put a finger on what in the world is really causing the fear.) If I can, then of course I should just solve it or perceive that I have and thus feel happy.

The problem with sadness

If only sadness is left.... what if a person is harming you exactly because they are using force, because they think you are evil? Expressing sadness only makes them think they're successfully accomplishing exactly what they were trying to accomplish.

Then what?

Expressing anger

Just supposing one was still devo and occasionally forgot and went back to believing in evil, and feeling hate and anger, in the spirit of honesty should they express this anger?

Never express anger unless you are very close to actually using some force. Expressions of anger are Only a message that you think the person in question is evil (causing harm and just not caring, not possible to be reasoned with). All such expressions do is potentially cause the person to feel fear and thus you have indeed reduced the interaction to Force instead of Reason. We're all devo and feel anger anyway, but unless you're actually about ready to go beyond Reason, you should simply be Dishonest and Hide this.

Honesty isn't always the best policy. Finally. For the first time in my life I'm saying this.

For me you could express anger and it'd be OK. I have empathy and can see the pain which caused the anger and that you've reached a point where you feel like I'm just not even trying to understand. But apparently the vast majority of manking isn't like this. Everyone else sees the anger and assumes the worst; they assume force may be coming any second, and apparently that completely takes precedence over any attempts at empathy.

Express sadness only. And if that doesn't work, float away on the postindustrial wind.

In response to harm

In response to harm there is sadness and/or anger. Are there any other alternatives? Crying requires belief in god, does any sadness at all require that...? Not sure. Is there some other undefined thing near sadness? Should sadness be broken down into different things? Is there a sadness that beseeches god or some person to help and then is there another kind of sadness?

The other is anger. For that one must believe in evil and thus think force is necessary. (Because the person knows they're causing harm and just doesn't care, thus reason will do no good; Reason versus Force).

What can cause a turn toward anger instead of to sadness? Some people are disposed to usually go towards anger instead of sadness. Of course, the main thing is simply believing in evil. That may explain it. Would you ever just get sad instead if you felt the cause of the situation was evil? If you feel that no one really is to blame, or the situation is just such a hard to thing to fathom that you can't see who could be culpable really... You could then turn to god for help, IOW turn to sadness.

Is there any other reason to turn to sadness? ...? Just in general if the situation is beyond the ability of humans to fix it. Or so far has been. If it seems hopeless. With no belief in evil there is no anger. Yet that only leaves sadness (if any generally negative emotion at all...) What does one feel if they don't believe in evil yet don't believe in god either? (And of course aren't just intellectualizing all the emotion right out of everything.)

Pity. Pity is a sort of sadness. Just a sadness for some other person; this profoundly stupid person. Sadness doesn't require belief in god. It's just that as a situation becomes hopeless we naturally start thinking about gods.

In this world of force, men with pride turn to anger instead of sadness.

To sadness there is potential crying; and men don't let some person who caused them harm, cause them to cry. They don't even let some person who caused them harm, cause them to be sad. Instead there is anger.

And he who turns to the rightwing adaptation first, wins. (He stabs the other guy in the back first, wins.) Anger is the rightwing adaptation.

The sad man is the loser (the jackals all laugh at him). The madman still has a chance...... :((((((( Or so he thinks. When really he's a bigger loser than the sad man.