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    20 Features- 20 Bugs (of human nature)
    There is an endless debate raging from just about forever about what constitutes the nature of a human, the following is a short list of features that to my mind belong to the human nature, should belong to the human nature or will belong to the human nature if and when we as a specie will evolve into a creature that is a bit more than a verbose primate who shops till he drops, wars just for fun and argues about god because of boredom or righteousness.
    That which I consider not a feature of the human nature I have termed, as is the norm, a bug, and thus a bug is a fault, a mistake, an error, a miscalculation, wrongness and so on and so forth. Above all a bug should be obliterated, changed, altered and if possible transformed into a feature beneficial to the human nature.

    So first and foremost comes the foundation of all features and the mother of all bugs:
    (updated)
    1. Life is a feature- Death is a bug get rid of it

    And then come all the rest

    2. Intelligence is a feature- ignorance is a bug get rid of it
    3. Health is a feature- illness is a bug get rid of it
    4. Freedom is a feature- slavery is a bug get rid of it
    5. Love is a feature- hatred is a bug get rid of it
    6. Rational thought is a feature- superstition is a bug get rid of it
    7. Gender equality is a feature- gender bias is a bug get rid of it
    8. Free resources for all is a feature- control is a bug get rid of it
    9. Deep emotions is a feature- cheap feelings is a bug get rid of it
    10. Chaos is a feature- a given order is a bug get rid of it
    11. Reflection is a feature- A fixed belief is a bug get rid of it
    12. Longevity is a feature- a given lifespan is a bug get rid of it
    13. Sharing is a feature- private aggregation is a bug get rid of it
    14. Non-attachment is a feature- attachment is a bug get rid of it
    15. Sensibility is a feature – rudeness is a bug get rid of it
    16. Happiness is a feature- suffering is a bug get rid of it
    17. Self-creation is a feature- The creator is a bug get rid of it
    18. Joy is a feature- pettiness is a bug get rid of it
    19. Dignity is a feature – oppression is a bug get rid of it
    20. Pride is a feature- arrogance is a bug get rid of it

    21. Oneness is a feature, Dichotomy is a bug, get rid of it
    (Inspired by 3LS)

    22.Critical thought is a feature, manipulative thought is a bug, get rid of it.
    (proposed by dmitridb)


    a note:
    This is only a preliminary list, I have in mind a much larger complement of features and bugs that I wish to investigate for a future transbeing.

    What would you add/ take away?


    Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link

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    3LSZVJA9     Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link


    What if dichotomization was a bug and we should get rid of it?



    FrankLloydWrong     Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link
    This is an interesting post.
    I do think it can be helpful to identify the "bugs" that hinder our progress or make us violent, but if all of these aspects of life were eliminated, how boring life would be!

    Here are numbers I had a glaring problem with:

    #5- love vs. hatred

    if all we did was endlessly love everything and everyone, love would no longer mean anything. we define ourselves by what we love and what we hate, and your experience of each is only possible in relation to the other.

    #9- deep emotion vs. cheap feelings

    This is subjective. It's also telling people what they should be feeling, which is bullshit.

    #10- chaos vs. order

    everything of beauty results from a balance between order and chaos, the elimination of either is destructive.

    #12- longevity vs. lifespan

    isn't this the same as #1?

    #14- non-attachment vs. attachment

    It's not possible to feel deep emotion for something you have no attachment to.

    Any time you label something like "arrogance" or "rudeness" as a bug, you assume a judgement role, and all of a sudden it's not permissible to act or feel a certain way. To me, this is profoundly troublesome, and is in direct contradiction to other "features" like freedom and imposes a strict order of behavior (which is listed as a bug in #10)

    These are just my thoughts, no disrespect to you. I think that a list could be made of behaviors which are never OK, and then an attempt to debug them could be made by addressing the specific reasons they occur.

    thoughts?
         Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link
    I really like this. It's quite poetic.

    However, as a response to FrankLloydWrong's reply where he argued that arrogance and rudeness are subjective, yeah, they definitely are, and the rest of your considerations make sense to me as well. But, after filtering feelings towards other's actions, such as "that person is an arrogant bastard", through critical thought and all those other necessary steps which are connected to reaching the true bottom of things, what I think that Wildcat was trying to say is that when rudeness and arrogance stifle freedom, is when it's a "bug". Of course, that's all subjective as well, but again, it all depends on the situation and how we decide to think about it.

    That said: Critical thought is a feature, manipulative thought is a bug, get rid of it.
    paulteagan     Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link
    I agree with 3LSZVJA9. While it seems nice to get rid of all of the "negative" things, the reality in most of those situations is that the positive doesn't exist without the negative.
    josh     Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link
    FrankLloydWrong: I completely agree with you on this one. I read this post before you commented, but hadn't written anything yet. Once you commented, you nailed what i was going to say right on the head.

    dmitridb    : you said "...what I think that Wildcat was trying to say is that when rudeness and arrogance stifle freedom..." —
    FrankLloydWrong had this covered already by saying "...you assume a judgement role, and all of a sudden it's not permissible to act or feel a certain way. To me, this is profoundly troublesome..."

    Indeed the points that Wildcat makes are apt. However, much like both FrankLloydWrong and 3LSZVJA9 point out, there must be a dichotomy, a positive and a negative, a binary opposition. Without hate, you would not understand love, without ignorance, there would be no definition of intelligence, without chaos, there would be no order.
         Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link
    Whoops, must have misread there a bit. Thanks for clearing that up :)

    And, with the dichotomy thing, to attempt at putting it precisely, is the problem not that the opposites exist but that the opposites are globally out of balance relative to their impact and importance in whatever situations that they apply?
    cupcakewizard     Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link
    I subscribe to the belief that without contrast we wouldn't assimilate. I think that each one of us is a unique expression that makes up a part of the whole. Our purpose? To co-exist, experience, to error, experiment, and evolve.

    I don't think there would be any motivation without the unsavory and immoral.

    I'm on the fence with the list of features vs. bugs because I think some of the proposed features are actually negative attributes in the context of eradicating the opposite. For example intelligence vs. ignorance, joy vs. pettiness, sharing vs. private aggregation. Extermination of the human experience doesn't seem like the answer. However I'm certainly with you on freedom vs. slavery, gender equality, and one of my favorites- non-attachment. Great post Wildcat!
    Wildcat     Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link
    First a general note before responding in a more specific manner: it might be that the context of the post has not been presented clearly enough, the list of features and bugs that I have posted treats the idea of human nature as an entity to be assembled and not an article that already exists and thus should not be taken as such (i.e. if the goal is self creation, then nature should be taken as the foundation of the construct). Furthermore, contextually speaking I am thinking about H+, Human V.2, V.3 and so on, thus the apparent dichotomies are points to consider IF we could, would and, as I believe, eventually should construct/create a different kind of human. (Please note the statement: belong to the human nature, should belong to the human nature or will belong to the human nature if and when we as a specie will evolve..)

    And one last item, which is also a response to both the dichotomy and dualistic approaches that have been presented in the comments; It is my view that emotions are in fact high level abstractions, that are fundamentally blocked in a dualistic perception that has evolved for reasons and causes that are totally irrelevant to their potential and future development, more later.

    On to specifics

    To 3LS: Dichotomization is indeed a bug and we should get rid of it, however, as we are (still) on the way to creating a human V.2, which will not have a dichotomized mind, we still need the tool of dichotomy for purposes of elucidation and contrast clarification, hence the usage. However if you can propose a different manner of presentation of contrasts that is more apt, please do so.

    How about adding:

    Oneness is a feature, Dichotomy is a bug, get rid of it.

    To FrankLoydWrong:

    As for love versus hate, allow me to disagree, though it is true that generally speaking most humans will indeed describe themselves as you say, I do not think that this is necessary nor inherently demanded by the emotions themselves. As I see it, your love is not contrasted with your hatred; actually I see them as two separate processes that in fact imply very little on the other, if at all. And thus no, I do not agree that these emotions are known only in relation to the other, though admittedly that is the “folk wisdom” view.

    As to deep emotion vs. cheap feelings, upon which you commented that it is bulshit and it is telling people what they should feel. Again I must disagree, that is not the meaning, nor the gist of the statement, what it does say however is that deep emotions are a desirable trait in a future human nature and makes the primal distinction between emotions and feelings, allowing an internal hierarchy of self knowledge in this respect.

    As to chaos vs. order, please note that what is actually written is “ given order” and not “order” in the metaphysical/math/physics sense.

    As to non-attachment vs. attachment, upon which you commented that: “It's not possible to feel deep emotion for something you have no attachment to. “ I would again beg to differ, not only that I disagree fundamentally with this commonly assumed reality, I would go further and state the opposite, namely, attachment obstructs deep emotions and allows only “beer talk feelings”, which exist (and have their place of fun) but have very little bearing on the evolution of the mind.

    Finally, this list is intended to give a general possible outline of a foundation for the nature of a future human, these are in no way behavioral guides to which one should adhere, hence no need to accept or reject. Think of it as a list of “to do” when imagining the construct of a future human.

    To Josh: why would you need ignorance to define intelligence? Why the binary constructs? I recognize they exist as such but I think these are a possible manner of mental existence, which means, that a binary construct is not necessarily fundamental nor for that matter the best possible manner of mental existence.

    And thanks for all, for stimulating comments which will demand of me now to update and upgrade
    3LSZVJA9     Wed, Jan 2, 2008  Permanent link
    In the analysis of history, Hegel once said that a proposition is not true because the opposite is false. True must be able to remain true when the exact opposite is also true.
    Anyway, logic propositions of this kind can remain irrefutable or generate infinite amounts of discussion just because they are not attached to any particular circumstance.
    Try contrasting them with the world and you'll see surprising results.
    Abolish death, for example...


    Other of the clearer examples could be illness vs. health.
    The broader view sees processes of illness and health that regulate and sustain life.
    Health is now seen as an asset that permits us to achieve what we are determined to achieve, what would be lack of mental health for a fireman, might turn into increased sensibilty for a writer or a thinker of any kind.
    Some of the brightests minds of any generation have been "diseased" from birth to death.
    Get rid of them?
    To dichotomize is not just to discriminate opposites, it is to imply that in no way they overlap.
    In some cases the reduction is so gross that it isolates ideas, preventing them to be understood from their genealogies to their concecuences on other ideas.
    Knowledge is a cocktail, a soup.
    Ignorance is not the opposite to inteligence.

    Beneath it all, I see a not so subtle flavor of good vs. evil.
    One of the most dangerous ideas we, as a species have come up with.
    I think that for primal societies in the desert, any foreigner must have seemed a bit of a bug, for example. Many things that could be seen as a problem, an obstacle, a "bug" as you call it, at any given moment, may prove to be "features" if we look at things from above.


    "A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it."


         Thu, Jan 3, 2008  Permanent link
    I'm going to toss some psychology into this discussion.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_%28psychology%29

    If a person fails to accomplish this developmental task, borderline pathology can develop. The borderline personality is not able to integrate the good and bad images of both self and others. Kernberg also states that people who suffer from borderline personality disorder have a ‘bad representation’ which dominates the ‘good representation’[2]. This makes them experience love and sexuality in perverse and violent qualities which they cannot integrate with the tender, intimate side of relationships [3]. These people tend to suffer from intense fusion anxieties in intimate relationships, because the boundaries between self and other are not firm. A tender moment between self and other could mean the disappearance of the self into the other. This triggers intense anxiety. To overcome the anxiety, the other is made into a very bad person; this can be done, because the other is made responsible for this anxiety. However, if the other is viewed as a bad person, the self must be bad as well. Viewing the self as all bad cannot be endured, so the switch is made to the other side: the self is good, which means the other must be good too. If the other is all good and the self is all good, where does the self begin and end? Intense anxiety is the result and so the cycle repeats itself.


    Also, does a baby know hate? How can there be love vs. hate for a baby, when all the baby knows is love and fear, the former which develops into sexuality and the latter which develops into hatred?
     
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