5 ms·
More reflection, sure. Experience. Humility. But also less hormones. Young people are hormone-driven action-reaction machines.
by slver 5y ago
More reflection, sure. Experience. Humility.
But also less hormones. Young people are hormone-driven action-reaction machines.
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoEveryone is just a machine
- okareaman 5y agoYes, we have become very efficient in doing things. What we are doing, we have become so efficient in doing that we don’t need any awareness to do it. It has become mechanical, automatic. We function like robots. We are not men yet; we are machines. That’s what George Gurdjieff used to say again and again, that man as he exists is a machine. He offended many people, because nobody likes to be called a machine. Machines like to be called gods; then they feel very happy, puffed up. Gurdjieff used to call people machines, and he was right. If you watch yourself you will know how mechanically you behave. http://www.pomyc.org/blog-details/55 http://www.pomyc.org/blog-details/55 The exact quote by Gurdjieff is worth reading. Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions" dealt with this theme in an extraordinary way. He created a character who was going mad because he felt he was living among robots. At last, his character finds an artist that had a "light" in him, a soul, and the character decides everything is ok. At this point Kurt Vonnegut inserts himself into the narrative (which struck me as extraordinary) and says that he decided not to kill himself because he wrote this story (his mother committed suicide.) This book also helped me become more self-aware.
- nexuist 5y agoA machine more commonly known as an "animal" :)
- monktastic1 5y agoEveryone can be described as machine-like if you apply that particular lens. From a first-person perspective I am pure consciousness operating a meat suit. You may argue that reductive materialism allows you to reduce my claim to one about matter, but the onus is on you to prove materialism -- which I suspect you'll be hard-pressed to do in an HN comment.
- jgwil2 5y agoI mean, if you accept that the laws of physics are deterministic, don't you sort of have to accept materialism? I would think the onus would be on you to show a mechanism for the interaction between the physical and the "spiritual" (or whatever you want to call it). In other words, how does this pure consciousness affect things in a purely deterministic physical universe?
- slver 5y agoBut I said specifically "hormone-driven action-reaction machines."
- okareaman 5y agoI did a course of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and related therapies with young veterans and saw them benefit, although they probably couldn't tell you how it works.