Psych questions

[BigBuckBob]

I feel like discussing the questions brought up in the sb, but want to avoid sb take over, so here it is.

1. Alcohol as an escape.
2. Humans as unnatural.


not exactly the original questions, but it is the part that i wanted o write about.

[BigBuckBob]

Humans as unnatural seems to be what overtook the sb whilst I was making the thread. So I will start there.

The analytical nature of humans and the general belief that we are in charge gives some people a sense of responsibility. We have scientifically noticed population cycles, we are aware that in other species populations naturally raise and decline depending on other environmental factors. Being able recognize such things we reflect on human population and human impact on the environment and separate ourselves from the environment.

I believe that separation drives both sides of the argument, people who care not about the environment and only strive to protect people, and those who feel it is their job to force nature to do what is expected. i.e. force mating pandas at the zoo.

[Sandman02]

  To an extent this is inevitable - we could never survive in any environment by living a passive existence. Survival is attained through a constant struggle of exerting out influence on our environment in order to exploit the resources that we need to survive. As such I do not think that any but the most pampered could genuinely believe that we are truly "one with nature" - we are competitors, always. We are a social animal, and so a large factor in our success as a entity of peoples (town, city, country, race) depends on our ability to cooperate mutually with one another, thus resulting in a human-centric basis for moral worth. This is still the predominate viewpoint (see relgions, for example - "love thy neighbor").

  As much as some environmentalists may not want to think of things this way, I think the environmentalism movement is driven largely from an increased scarcity and competition over resources. Hunter-gatherer societies, for example, don't place much emphasis on environmentalism because they're ability to radically change their surroundings by their activities is limited. As we continue to run out of fuels to use and food to eat and water to drink, societies will increasingly have more environmental concerns, and can gradually change their behaviors slowly. But this is not driven by improvements in education or a superiority of cultures or merely a *perceived* increase in our destructive changes to the environment - it is driven by the significant increase in our actual detrimental impact on the environment.

 

[Jude]

Every animal changes the environment in which they live, human beings are no different in that regard.  The only thing that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom (and make no mistake, we are a part of it) is that we're really, really successful at what we do compared to them.  Our ability to acquire knowledge and pass it onto our descendants through communication is one of the essential keys that enabled us to conquer our surroundings in a way no other animals have.

As far as whether or not we're a part of nature, of course we are, we're subject to the same laws and rules as the rest of reality is.  Gravity doesn't stop at our doorstep.  Natural versus unnatural is a false dichotomy; man-made versus non-man-made is really the appropriate way of looking at it.  And nothing we construct is more "unnatural" than a beaver's dam really, just more complicated and sophisticated.