Does Human Existence = Human Expression?

[73809]

9 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

@Osaid What I'm saying is that copying is more fundamental than survival. Survival requires conscious effort and attention. Copying doesn't, it just runs amok.

Survival is easy lol 

 

i think you’re onto something that people copy tho. Copying others is only the natural instinct

Edited December 11, 2020 by 73809

[73809]

On 12/9/2020 at 10:58 AM, xxxx said:

Is the core of human existence centered around its need to express itself, through the various emotions?

Does human existence = human expression? 

Is it that we are a lonely species, with a strong need for survival, with expression as its only tool? If this were to stop, would they cease to exist, altogether? 

Are human emotions just a selfish tool for survival? 

Example: If most of the people in the world really do get truly enlightened, does that mean that the population would be bare minimum - because they have transcended the need to express themselves, through these human emotions?

 

Expression is natural. I’d wouldn’t know if it was core, maybe it is that seems alright to me. Expression is doing, really. You can’t do without expression. You can’t express without doing. Action is expression, they basically mean the same thing. Expression is just an alternative label to action, which implies emotion, it implies thought, it implies opening up, among other things. But really expression just means doing.

 

 Humans won’t cease to exist lol.  Tho I’d argue that humans are a notion. They don’t really exist in the first place; this idea that we’re all the same is just an idea. You only know your direct experience; and the idea that humans exist isn’t true or false. It’s a story you tell yourself. Believe it if you will. I believe it! Lol! Humans! Imagine that! Crazy!

 As far as this human business is concerned, I’d say we’re expressive creatures.

 

 Human emotions... I say, emotions don’t really exist. They’re just sensation mixed with thought! Emotions are a story we tell ourselves. What’s real? What is direct experience? Are emotions there? My emotions are sensations mixed with thoughts. Illusory really. So no, they aren’t a means for survival, tho I guess you could argue they’re selfish, in that the ego is selfish. What’s selfish though? What does that really mean? 
 

enlightenment is illusion. it doesn’t really exist. it implies a change, and there is no change. You’re already awake! The idea of waking up is the idea of the self, there is no self. Existence just happens, there is no you. Enlightenment is transcending the ego. The ego is the delusion that you exist.

 

 The need to express is another illusion. you don’t need to express anything. That’s just a story you’ve woven. In reality, “expression” is just another word for action. Do you have a need to act? No, but action occurs. Action is the present moment unfolding. Expression is the present moment unfolding. It’s as necessary as existence, really. Is existence necessary? I’d say so. 

[Osaid]

9 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

Survival requires conscious effort and attention.

Not true, most of your survival is unconscious. You're right in saying that copying others is unconscious to a large degree, but copying others is also a survival mechanism.

A lot of your survival is based around self-deception actually. If you were conscious of how some of your survival strategies work, you would probably stop doing them. But, the ego prevents that of course.

From an outside perspective, smoking seems stupid. But, the smoker has completely self-deceived himself to the point where he does it daily without even thinking about it. To him, smoking makes perfect sense.

After a while, a lot of your survival gets shoved in the background and becomes habits you don't even think twice about.

For example, when someone smokes, they don't often tell themselves: "I am smoking as an unhealthy coping mechanism to fill in the void left by my depression." In order for survival to work, the ego must hide this fact from you. So instead, the ego turns it into something like: "Smoking is just a small enjoyable activity I do when I feel like taking a break." Now, this sort of thinking is much more palatable and it will allow you to smoke without feeling guilty.

[Gesundheit]

5 hours ago, 73809 said:

Survival is easy lol 

I would make a distinction between surviving and survival. Surviving may be easy, we just need basic stuff like food and air and security, but survival is different as it's a lot more challenging than that.

[Gesundheit]

@Osaid Here's the thing, we can define all survival in terms of copying, but we can't define all copying in terms of survival.

Survival is simply the act of copying some identity.

[Osaid]

17 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

Survival is simply the act of copying some identity.

Copying others is just one method for survival, albeit a pretty significant one

17 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

but we can't define all copying in terms of survival.

This is true, I was only talking about copying others

[Gesundheit]

2 hours ago, Osaid said:

Copying others is just one method for survival.

Not just one method for survival, but rather the one and only method.

And it's not about copying others per se, the bottom-line is that survival is basically just the process of copying a certain identity through time. That's what all survival is. If an identity changes entirely, can we consider that survival? Did the identity survive or die?

Even on the physical level, the body is always generating new cells out of the old ones (copies). Even on the genetic level it's copying.

[Osaid]

 

22 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

If an identity changes entirely, can we consider that survival? Did the identity survive or die?

It's accurate to say it died, since change is against survival

22 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

survival is basically just the process of copying a certain identity through time.

It's more accurate to say that part of survival is copying what other people identify with, because identity isn't something that actually exists. Once you identify with something, that identification now has to be maintained through methods such as self-deception. What do you think self-deception has to do with copying? 

 

 

 

[Gesundheit]

7 hours ago, Osaid said:

because identity isn't something that actually exists.

But also, it is something that actually exists. Identity is a pointer that refers to something actual, otherwise it couldn't exist. We might say that the identification process is illusory and deceitful, and maybe kinda arbitrary, but that does not mean identity doesn't actually exist. Because it exists to the one holding it, as a concept.

The concept of self-deception is tricky. How do we know that that concept itself is not a self-deception? What decides?

[Osaid]

13 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

But also, it is something that actually exists. Identity is a pointer that refers to something actual, otherwise it couldn't exist. We might say that the identification process is illusory and deceitful, and maybe kinda arbitrary, but that does not mean identity doesn't actually exist. Because it exists to the one holding it, as a concept.

What I meant is that it only exists as an illusion

13 hours ago, Gesundheit said:

The concept of self-deception is tricky. How do we know that that concept itself is not a self-deception? What decides?

Acknowledging self-deception is against self-deception. The entire game of self-deception is that you are unaware of it.