Quotations and Literature Forum

Nemesis brought up a good question in the forum The purpose of your life, and I would like to carry it on here. See what all of you guys have to say about it.



But is it really intelligence that is the cause for our survival? When a car is coming in our direction and is going to hit us, do we waste time on thinking about what we should do, or do we just react? If we don't think, is it really intelligence or something else?

Let me know what you guys think.

Raven

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"You must learn there is a time to speak all of the truth, and a time to govern your tongue."
~Verin (The Wheel of Time)

i do not believe in evolution... i think someone just made it up. do you believe we evolved from mokeys? that is insane.

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All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
Sir Winston Churchill
British politician (1874 - 1965)

If it wasn't intelligence would it be like an instinct a reflex?
But is intelligence the "ultimate weapon"? Can intelligence save us from bombs? Unless you know about and were able to evacuate you couldn't really be saved right?
Uh oh. I'm confusing myself.
I'll stop.
Webbratz

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value" Aurthur Clarke said that, and I agreee with him. Anything we need to survive, we have as instinct. Intelligence has brought us above the animals, but it isn't the ultimate weapon. It has become an animal in itself. Intelligence told us how to create a nuclear weapon. Intelligence has told us that the flu strand can be mutated and used to kill large masses of our enemies. It told the 9-11 idiots that a plane full of fuel would take out a large building full of Americans.
My opinion is that it has been our "Ultimate weapon" To bring us on top of the food chain for all these years, but will be the thing that kills us all.
Yang

_________________
We hold these truths to be selve evident, but evidence is not ownership. Those words are not a decree that we have life, liberty, happiness. Only an iron clad statement that it is ours if we are willing to do all that is necessary to take it.

I do agree with Yin that our intelligence would ultimately bring us death. You know the ealry humans were smart and created new inventions that would be useful for human survival but as our brains became more sufisticated, we created new techniques and machine to be used against our enemies, when our enemies heard of them they use it against us and so goes on the ongoing cycle of destruction all because of our dumb use of intelligence. If you guys are aware there is a new bomb called the matter bomb, what it does is it finds any bit of matter to destroy but that bomb is so powerful that it could crete a nuclear chain reaction of matter destruction and if we were to test it we'll know that it works but we will not longer be here unles we go into underground nuclear shelter which there are not engough in the world so only few wil survive.

_________________
All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
Sir Winston Churchill
British politician (1874 - 1965)

I think that nearly all technology going back forever as long as their were humans as been used for war. This is slowly changing with an increasing amount of blue skies research maybe we can turn our survival instintcs round and stop war.
"either war is obselete or man is"

_________________
"The Truth may be out there but the lies are in your head"
"I tend to think if God wanted us to believe in him he'd exist."

Unfourtunately our survival instincts seem to be more in tuned to dominate and destroy to obtain self preservation. What is funny is the fact that it will kill us all. To survive we need to divert our intelligence away from killing each other with huge bombs and diseases and begin finding ways to stay alive. Unfourtunately what the leaders of our nations see is that there is no money in that, and too much of a risk of another country taking the oppurtunity to take out an old enemy.
Yang

_________________
We hold these truths to be selve evident, but evidence is not ownership. Those words are not a decree that we have life, liberty, happiness. Only an iron clad statement that it is ours if we are willing to do all that is necessary to take it.

So if we eliminate the idea of surviving through domination and destruction, we take the chances of being annihilated by our enemies. In the process of being destroyed by another country, are we supposed to just let them kill us?
To stop survival through domination an destruction we would have to make the whole world understand this. Then theres the question whether that would be possible or not.

So any ideas on what we could do besides that to survive?

We are talking about eliminating certain instincs here.

Raven

_________________
"You must learn there is a time to speak all of the truth, and a time to govern your tongue."
~Verin (The Wheel of Time)

I love this guy! its funny, cos its true.




They did. Based on evidence.

I dont think intelligence itself is evil. Our intelligence gives us the ability to solve problems, whether for good or bad concequences. Intelligence gives us the ability to alter ourselves or the enviroment to help us survive (eg. Creating clothes in cold weather. Building farms for food)



Very true, and very well put. But intelligence also taught us how to heal the sick, protect the weak from the impending disease, and to strike at those foes who are deadly to us (think of how many terrorists attacks may have been prevented due to good intelligence).

Intelligence taught us about the flue. It was other parts of us that decided whether we cured the sick, or killed them with it.




Your probably right.



I suppose any technology can be used for either good or evil. "Wars will cease when men refuse to fight."



Do you think there are any instincts we dont need any more (Im talking from a survival point of view here)?



Purhaps if we could somehow stop wars, the need from protection from each other would lessen. But then there would always be the global fear that aliens might attack.

Aliens?!?!8O
Nemesis do you really think that there are aliens out there?

Webbratz

I also think there are aliens but not near enough and I think they can't be warlike as they would never get past a civilasation like ours. Actually I think the one way to stop wars would be if an alien space ship started orbiting around earth.

_________________
"The Truth may be out there but the lies are in your head"
"I tend to think if God wanted us to believe in him he'd exist."

sigfried - maybe that's what we need. It certainly would be interesting. This is reminding me of "Independance Day"
Webbratz

Maybe we need another War of the Worlds. Except that might only start chaos, and whats to say that if we had an encounter with aliens that they would be nice? After all the crap this world has done, I'm sure their ready to kill us too. But I do agree with Sigsfried that it would probably stop the wars. Some times drastic things need to happen to make people see what they are doing wrong.

Raven

_________________
"You must learn there is a time to speak all of the truth, and a time to govern your tongue."
~Verin (The Wheel of Time)

I never said we needed to fight them just for them to arrive. If they are hostile we wouldn't stand a chance. Imagine taking toadys weapons back 100 years. They would be much further than that ahead so we wouldn't be able to defend ourselves.

_________________
"The Truth may be out there but the lies are in your head"
"I tend to think if God wanted us to believe in him he'd exist."

I wasn't saying that we would have to fight them, I was just making the point that they might not be nice due to your statement:

_________________
"You must learn there is a time to speak all of the truth, and a time to govern your tongue."
~Verin (The Wheel of Time)