What pisses me off most about science
 

Is that I've come to realize that none of our actions have deeper meaning beside being the most logical decision at a certain time and place. For instance, there is no such thing as a purely selfless act. Everything we do is in our own interest, for our own survival and/or complacency. You could boil it down to semantics or definitives, but words like 'altruism' have no basis in reality.

And don't forget, your desire to find goodness and meaning is itself a product of evolution designed to cause you to act in a way that perpetuates the species and is therefore purely pragmatic and without goodness or meaning itself. Embrace the nihilism.

I've accepted it, give me 10 years and hopefully I'll have embraced it

I wouldn't count on it. The best you can hope for, unless you're Tore, is a slow decline into apathy and a growing disinterest in the affairs of humanity. On the plus side Lord of the Rings will only get better and better.

This is HIGHLY debated.
Think of the example of tipping on a business trip to a new city.
You have never been there before. You visit a restaurant, alone. You're done with your meal, the waitress leaves you the check, and you leave her a tip as you walk out the door.
Why would you possibly do that? It in no way benefits you, you don't need to go through a socially awkward situation since the waitress is not in eyesight when you leave, and you will almost certainly never see her or anyone in that restaurant again.
Some studies have shown humans capable of truly altruistic acts.

That it does, fiction is the only place where things make sense to me anymore

You're left with a feeling of complacency about yourself, that you did the right thing.

If tipping the waitress made you feel terrible about yourself, you wouldn't repeat the process the next time.

I think what you're saying is true in some ways but it doesn't diminish altruism for me. If people do nice things because it makes them feel good, I don't see that as a negative. And I'm not sure how any of this connects to science specifically.

Because if you didn't then you would know that you hadn't and it would cause you to feel "bad". Or more accurately it would cause a release of chemicals or some such (yeah, accurate) into your brain that you would find unpleasant. This has been programmed into you so that you would respect cultural conventions and make you and the rest of humankind better able to interact with each other for the purpose of survival. And on and on until the entire concept of altruism just becomes a carrot and stick.

Science explains what is responsible for the actions, the thought process that goes into decision-making. And the impartiality of it all.

I loan/give my mom money all the time. It doesn't necessarily make me feel good and I don't feel bad about it either. I don't feel the need to do it either, I just do it because she asked. There are plenty of things I do for her like working on her car when it breaks down. She doesn't even necessarily need her car running she hardly uses it but I do it because she asked not because of any underlying need or complacency. My friends mother has Alzheimers and they could have put her in a nursing home many years ago but he takes care of her because he wants her to remain at home and be a part of their family. He doesn't have any underlying motive such as money because they could afford to do so. He just does it because he loves his mother.

Why does that piss you off?

Besides the impartiality of it all?... how relative things are. The world used to be black and white to me, now I can't figure it out. And I'm an arrogant **** who wants to know

So social reciprocity to one's family isn't at all explainable by pure pragmatism? You do good things for people because it helps to foster cooperation in the human race which helps you in the long run. Since your mother takes care of you for at least eighteen years of your life I imagine this is a hundred times more applicable.

No, its empathy. It doesn't just have to do with making yourself feel better, if you don't understand that then you are kind of missing the point.

Why is impartiality a bad thing to you? I generally see it in a positive light. I thought most people did.

Fostering cooperation? WTF I don't see it as being cooperative in any sense its more about looking at it as just money. I do good things for people because sometimes people need good things to be done for them, not because I gain anything from it. What do I gain from giving someone money that I will never see again? My mother actually didn't take care of me for 18 years I lived with my father as a kid.

Read "To Build a Fire" by Jack London and then tell me impartiality is a good thing lol

The debate is over whether or not that can be considered correlative. You can't say that people are necessarily not altruistic because they feel good when they act altruistically.

Thats a good point. Why does there have to be some underlying motive to being a caring person that does good things for people.

You're not looking at the big picture. If you didn't feel the need to do good things for your mother, then it would hurt the mother/child relationship between you. And if everyone likewise didn't feel the need to do good things for their mother then the whole concept of a mother/child relationship would suffer. Since human beings are formed (physically, mentally, and emotionally) by their parents and their relationships with them, a breakdown in these relationships would be catastrophic to the survival of the human race. So, doing good things for your mother is not only about your own self interest, but the self interest of the human race in general. Which is why we evolved this way in the first place, because it's just pragmatic.

I did read that a long time ago but don't remember it well enough to know what you're talking about. Maybe you should just explain what you mean by impartiality because to me a lack bias is generally a good thing.

Because there's always a motive for every action, be it instictively based or experience based. We're not a blank slate of endless choices, everything that has happened to us factors into how we act in the future

I'm not saying that people aren't altruistic. I'm saying that the concept of altruism is something that evolution programmed us into believing in. The reason we do things is pragmatic concern. Our belief in goodness and altruism is just our way to justify this pragmatic concern.

So someone whos family is murdered by a serial killer becomes a serial killer? Because I lived with my dad almost my entire childhood, factors into why I do nice things for my Mother? I think you're reading too much into motive when there are simply things people do because they want to do it with no underlying motive whatsoever.

Not so much playing favorites as generally how inescapable the universe's forces are that going into shape who we are, and how little control we have over how our lives play out

Born without limbs? Have fun struggling with depression and ostracization from society during the one life you get.

There are people born without limbs that do just fine in society. People struggle with ostracization and depression that have all of their limbs.

Uh what? I'm not even sure what you were trying to get across with your serial killer hypothetical. If you were trying to say that I was saying we simply mime everything we see, then no. That's a gross simplification of the process.

Is this supposed to be an argument for free will?

Well, life is hard and unfair, I agree with that. But the nice thing about a naturalistic worldview is that you're operating under the assumption that it's nothing personal, unlike a religious worldview where all the horrible, unfair stuff is being deliberately caused by intelligent agents.

Well it seems your grossly simplifying the human race. Not everything has to have motive in the World.

Definitely true, and aside from having to suspend logic to believe in a God in the first place, that was one of the moral qualms I had when I first started questioning religion. Sort of a bleak outlook either way, isn't it?

The human race is only so far removed from apes. We're just another link in the chain of evolution, neither of us will live to see the day that a newer dominant species arises, but it will happen.

But it is still real and still exists. I realize that taking a peak behind the curtain can kind of take away the magic, sing-songy bit of it. But you can still appreciate that we are often much nicer and caring than we have to be and should be. I mean, I literally have met a man that jumped on a grenade to save his buddies.

No that's you. You don't seem to be looking at the reasons why human actions might have evolved like they have over the last few billion years. Do you think altruism just came about for no apparent reason? It would only evolve if it had a pragmatic use for our survival. You didn't give your mother money for no reason. You did it because of millions of years of evolutionary conditioning that decided that helping one's mother is in your best interest.

No not really I did it because I had extra money in my account and she asked me to borrow it, but if it helps you to think that evolution played a part by all means.

A dominant altruistic species. :wave:

Yes it does.

People are as nice and caring as evolution says they should be. There's a bell curve of course, but that's not something we should get any credit for.

I made a post in the thread about whether or not you would kill someone for $50,000,000. I think it applies.

Just add "if a soldier wasn't willing to throw himself on a grenade" in there and it applies.

Now you're just not even trying to see my point.

Eh? Isn't a naturalistic worldview at odds with the entire notion of fairness?

I guess, but it's reality.

We're not removed from apes at all, we are a type of ape.