Evil in the World Today

Posted by $ MikeMarotta 11 years, 4 months ago to Culture
66 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

The virtue of selfishness presupposes the existence of a self. Julian Jaynes posited that the development of writing enable the creation of interior "voice." In the _Iliad_ warriors spoke to each other of being told by gods or spirits to act. But in the Odyssey, our hero is called "clever" because he is a "liar" who keeps his true motives to himself. As late at the 15th century CE, Joan of Arc thought that she "heard voices" never identifying her motivation as internal. Even today, millions of people have no voice in their heads. They routinize actions from imitation, but have no internal motivation. They have no internal experience.

(Reuters) - So you say all you want to do is to take a few minutes to sit down and think without anyone or anything bugging you? Maybe that is true. But you might be in the minority.

A U.S. study published on Thursday showed that most volunteers who were asked to spend no more than 15 minutes alone in a room doing nothing but sitting and thinking found the task onerous.

"Many people find it difficult to use their own minds to entertain themselves, at least when asked to do it on the spot," said University of Virginia psychology professor Timothy Wilson, who led the study appearing in the journal Science.

Researchers then had adult and college student volunteers do the same thing in their homes, and got the same results. In addition, a third of volunteers cheated by doing things like using a cellphone or listening to music.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/0...

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA report on the study here:
http://news.virginia.edu/content/doing-s...


All Comments


Previous comments...   You are currently on page 3.
  • Posted by wiggys 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am in the outdoor business and I can tell you for fact that the number of kids that fish today is radically down, the number of golfers is down 24 percent since 2002 I read recently. the number of kids camping is down so much that there are FORMER backpacking stores that no longer sell tents sleeping bags or packs. the number of obese kids has increased markedly. thanks to a lack of education that videos in all manner are the problem. when I grew up I NEVER heard of how much money a movie made on a weekend.
    being entertained by this medium requires no thinking.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by Hiraghm 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Well, who the hell would say, even back then, "bean me" or "stone me"? Doesn't make sense...
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by Hiraghm 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Well, he's completely wrong, anyway. We had a written (albeit primitive) language already when I was born, so that puts it back 23,000 years at least.
    I can't speak for the homo sapiens, although I assume they had written language along a parallel timeline.

    And what do you mean "EVEN Neanderthals"?
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I thought the origin of writing was found along the Nile just a little over 5400 years ago.
    IF what you say is right, this completely ruins the Clan of The Cave Bear series for me...
    I would think that even up to 25000 years ago, even neanderthals experienced satisfaction and pride in their skills. How else would you get someone to rise to spiritual leader for the group without some basic understanding and processing of emotions however mystically they were interpreted. I do think with the age of "me too" products, youth need to make a conscious effort to tune in by turning everything else off.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by Hiraghm 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Correction.

    I was not consulted as to this change, just as I was not consulted as to the forced adoption of the retardation system... I mean the metric system.

    It is widely used by those hostile to Christianity. Isn't it an odd coincidence that "BCE" has the same exact end date as "BC", and "CE" has the exact same start date as "AD". Not 1945, the year of the atom, not 1776, the year of individual liberty, not 6,000 BC, the earliest known written records, not Abe Urbe Condita, the founding of Rome, not 476 AD, the year the Western Roman Empire fell.

    Just because something has been pushed onto the public is no reason to accept it.

    It's political correctness, and therefore evil.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    CE stands for Common Era, what we call AD (Anno Domini = "Year of Our Lord"). BC - Before Christ - is now BCE "Before the Common Era." You can object to the political correctness, but is it widely used.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Comment hidden due to member score or comment score too low. View Comment
  • Posted by Hiraghm 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "Compact Edition"

    As in "Windows CE".

    It's also used sometimes as a PC euphemism for A.D. It's corollary is BCE... which demonstrates the PC stupidity of it.

    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree, Zen, that imagination can be and should be taught. Obviously, some people get it on their own, but like almost anything people do, more would do it better if (1) the process were understood and (2) means of learning it were also understood and enhanced. The most important thing to imagine is the consequences of your own actions. That seems sadly lacking in human affairs.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by $ 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, CircuitGuy, I believe that our inner self is a recent invention, since the origin of writing, about 8000 years ago. The development of human language from animal calls suggests that we were _conceptual_ creatures before we became _self-aware_. However, note that existing languages have roots no deeper than about 10,000 years ago. Our own Indo-European languages are younger, maybe half of that, from 3000 BCE. The theoretical construct "Nostratic" which supposedly links all of the languages of Africa and Asia including Europe seems to have strong commonality for "bean" and "stone" but not for "me."
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by Zenphamy 11 years, 4 months ago
    Imagination has to be fostered and encouraged at childhood. If not, you get the results shown in this study.
    Reply | Permalink  
  • Posted by CircuitGuy 11 years, 4 months ago
    Are you saying the self is a recent concept or one that's been around since ancient times?
    Reply | Permalink  

  • Comment hidden. Undo