living?

[RCSaunders]

Not everyone who is alive desires to remain alive.

After they've died, they will have no needs. Until they get up the nerve to off themselves, they need to breathe in air and breathe it out again, need to drink water and piss it out again. At a minimum.

But they won't drink water if they feel no thirst (desire water) and will not relieve themselves if they feel not urge (desire to urinate) and if they desire neither, they need neither. Why is it so important to you that everything must be a, "need?" There is never a need for anything where there is no objective, purpose, end, goal, or objective. Need is like all value terms, a relationship. There must always be something for which a thing is needed. Whenever someone say, "this is needed," there must be an answer to the question, "needed for what by whom?" Otherwise it is just a floating abstraction and like saying something is, "bigger," or, "inside," without saying bigger than what or inside what or needed for what?

[Walker]

egoistically of course

-Imp

Only if life is ultimately harmful, to the individual.

the ultimate end of life?

-Imp

Intellectually, based on past experience and observation, although we can infer with near-certainty that one’s particular body did not exist before one’s awareness of its existence, we all have the strong emotional feeling, bordering on certainty, that life never ends.

Thus, a conflict courses through Godless societies, a conflict that results from emotionally maintaining individual and societal order, all for what the intellect deduces is the dead-end purpose of oblivion.

This conflict can result in manifestations ranging from a perpetual, low-grade anxiety humming through all of societal intercourse, to individual debilitations of human capacity with rather consequential implications: mild forms such as neglecting to shower in the morning before showtime, at least in civilized situations when that’s both possible and considered appropriate to the situation.

More pronounced manifestations of the conflict built into society? Rioting in the streets condoned by political machinations unconcerned for the welfare of the governed.

[DPMartin]

food water shelter are needs, and wait long enough without them and you will desire them.

So true, so simple, so basic, and such an excellent intellectual portal to advance knowledge further concerning what's happening now *, via experience.

It’s easy to understand need and desire so completely that they become the measure of all things. The simplest method is to simply sit still without moving, without changing what is. Eventually, when the body does move by distracting attention from the purpose of sitting there without moving, then intellectually determine why the body moved. An accurate determination exposes the root of the motive force, which is … drumroll … attachment to desire, desire which is need by any other name.
Attachment unlocks the meaning of what’s happening.
Attachment is the key.
For without that attachment to a desire to change what is, awareness observes all the changes of the body without activating the desire to change, into movement.
Knowing the why of desire, in terms of a choice that has been made, or dare we say free will, is not even necessary for the detachment, and stillness, that results from perfectly balanced equanimity.
This is how that Vietnamese monk self-immolated without moving.
He was not enslaved, by attachment, to a need or desire to move.
All perfectly relevant to living, seeing as how living is motion caused by organic chemical processes.
Reaction or proaction?
* where reality can only exist

Attachment? I don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, just don’t see it. The pursuit, if you will, is the fulfillment thereof in the case of desire. Consider the monk you mention all he is really doing is denying himself fulfillment of desire, which is no different the being a captive and being denied fulfillment the same by your captors.

therefore it has nothing to do with "freewill" seeing fulfillment of desire (no matter how necessary for survival) can be denied by forces outside of one's self.

[DPMartin]

Could it be said that living is merely a series of fulfilling of desires ?

Living is a glasses we choose to wear to forget things in order to have a sense of wonder.

sounds like unicorns and rainbows the don't exist, for you. one has to consume to remain in the flesh, or sustain the flesh which is a desire with or without glasses.

[DPMartin]

Could it be said that living is merely a series of fulfilling of desires ?

I think it depends upon what is meant by "living" and what is meant by "desires". Some differentiate between "needs" and "desires" and some differentiate between "living" and "just existing".

food water shelter are needs, and wait long enough without them and you will desire them. and whether its to just exist or experience pleasures, they are desires.

[Impenitent]

Only if life is ultimately harmful, to the individual.

the ultimate end of life?

-Imp

Intellectually, based on past experience and observation, although we can infer with near-certainty that one’s particular body did not exist before one’s awareness of its existence, we all have the strong emotional feeling, bordering on certainty, that life never ends.

Thus, a conflict courses through Godless societies, a conflict that results from emotionally maintaining individual and societal order, all for what the intellect deduces is the dead-end purpose of oblivion.

This conflict can result in manifestations ranging from a perpetual, low-grade anxiety humming through all of societal intercourse, to individual debilitations of human capacity with rather consequential implications: mild forms such as neglecting to shower in the morning before showtime, at least in civilized situations when that’s both possible and considered appropriate to the situation.

More pronounced manifestations of the conflict built into society? Rioting in the streets condoned by political machinations unconcerned for the welfare of the governed.

utopia is a dream but nirvana is when reincarnation stops...

-Imp

[DPMartin]

I would say that living is the perpetual creation of magic societies, the societies coming from human creations.

yea sure, with sprinkles glitter and rainbow colored unicorns. you do realize what you posted sounds like, right?

When I posted, I meant that a magic society can consist of a mass of data, which has parameters to support the meaning

yea right, sure, i believe you. sorry pal, sounds like you spend way to much time in video entertainment.

[RCSaunders]

Only if life is ultimately harmful, to the individual.

the ultimate end of life?

-Imp

Intellectually, based on past experience and observation, although we can infer with near-certainty that one’s particular body did not exist before one’s awareness of its existence, we all have the strong emotional feeling, bordering on certainty, that life never ends.

All experience and, "intellectually," anyone who can think knows, every organism dies. Death is the state of a once living organism that is no longer living. Visit any cemetery, morgue, or slaughter house. Everything comes to an end. Nothing lasts forever, thank goodness!

The belief in life after death is just the wishful thinking of those who know they've made a complete botch of the only life they will ever actually have and hope for another one, but it is just superstitious nonsense.

Any belief based on, "feeling," is almost certainly wrong. Feelings are entirely physiological and non-cognitive and almost every wrong idea anyone believes or wrong thing anyone does is prompted by some, "irrational feeling," (a sentiment, desire, whim, fear, or impression) that, "just seems right at the time," but any clear reasoning would reveal is nonsense.

[Skip]

But they won't drink water if they feel no thirst (desire water)

Then they will be dead faster. If you do not desire what you need to survive, you die.

[RCSaunders]

But they won't drink water if they feel no thirst (desire water)

Then they will be dead faster. If you do not desire what you need to survive, you die.

Exactly. Getting exactly what they want.

Assuming everyone wants to live or that everyone wants the same things we do are both bad mistakes.