@freemo at some level it must exist, civilization prides itself (and manipulates others based) on its altruistic aspects. It seems very important to peoples self-image. There are altruistic acts, taking down a gunman, running in front of a car to save an unknown child... acts that occur spontaneously.
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@binsrc none of those acts are altruistic. You do it for many reasons such as to avoid guild, the happiness and pleasure from doing the good deed, and the praise and honor you receive from the community in doing so.
Altruism is simply an illusion, something we tell ourselves because it feels good.
@freemo ok, what about scientific/medical discoveries? Why do we even try? Surely not just to bolster the ego. All for fame and social credit?
@binsrc People get paid, they feel good, most have people in their life they would be sad to loose, lots of benefit for the people who work on cures really.
But of those reasons the biggest one seems to be wanting to save people you love who have the illness, which seems to be the vast majority of people working on cures, to avoid the guilt and sadness of doing nothing and letting their loved ones die is a lot of it.
@binsrc This isnt my idea by the way
@freemo Comte employed the term to denote the benevolent instincts and emotions in general, or action prompted by them: the opposite of egoism.
Is ego also an illusion?
@binsrc depends, your sense of self-importance may be an illusion, but the fact that you expiernce it is very real all the same.
@freemo yes I think altruism is a form of selfishness but can a persons desire for equality for other {race/gender/subdivision} be altruistic?
@binsrc Nothing can be altruistic, you wouldn't want it if it was :)
The problem is that people assume selfishness means bad. In fact selfishness can be bad or good and usually when we see positive selfishness we just call it altruism even though its not. Its more about our bias with words than anything.
@freemo if an individual spontaneously acts by putting themself in deaths way to save other individuals very immediately. (And dies)
There is no time for ego. There was an innate response at play. What is that? It’s not ego.
@binsrc its still ego, it is just reflexive. Our subconscious is capable of responding quickly and in line with our wishes.
In fact if the argument is truly "they had no time to think" then it isnt altruistic anymore than it is selfish, since they didnt reason about it either way.
*sniff sniff* I smell a meaningless definition and I must bark!
What selfishness do you see in an anonymous donation?
If your definition of selfishness is equivalent to motivation are you not just wasting a word?
I could just as well argue that the world is my perception and as long as I'm unconscious nothing exist. You can't disprove that, but you shouldn't even try because the whole idea is useless.
The selfishness in an anonymous donation would be the feelings of pleasure, self-rightousness, avoison of guilt, and quite often even the abiity to either brag about it or see yourself as superior to others.
Some of these apply more to some people than others. But a truly selfless act would be one that brings no pleasure, and if it brought no pleasure people wouldnt do it.
Exactly how are you going to brag about an anonymous donation? That wouldn't be an anonymous donation anymore, or at least not what I meant under anonymous donation.
I'm not sure what self righteousness is, and evasion of guilt is made up backstory in this case, which is beside the point.
And the notion of pleasure is too vague. How is it meaningful to group a person who sees pleasure only in helping others, with another who only sees it in their own body?
Also the reason it isnt useless is it leads to the realization that being selfish and being altruistic are one in the same thing. As such one would realize that in being a truely skillful person at being selfish would mean also doing whats best for yourself.
This manifests in people realizing being rich means they can help more people with that money and resources than it would to give away so much money you keep yourself poor, in which case youd have far less to give in a lifetime.
Of course being selfish, with that definition of selfish, is same as being altruistic. It is also the same as being anything else. Any motivation is selfish. I don't see how that leads to any conclusions or realizations.
I can't see how you can go from "I want to be skilful at being selfish" to anonymous donation, with any meaningful definition of selfish that does not make it an exact equivalent of the word "motivation", in this context.
The same rich person can come to the conclusion that they need to accumulate as much money as possible to go in the history as the richest man ever. How exactly is "helping others is good" deduced from "everything is done for selfish reasons"? (which, still, the way you put it, is an equivalent of "everything is done with some motivation", but this question stands even if you show otherwise)
If you mean that we are starting with a premise that "helping other is good" and then "everything is done selfish reasons" leads to realization of "need to become rich to help better", I can't see that either, these seem like a completely disjoint statements to me.
Do you mean they pursue riches for luxury life, and justify that by "it helps others too"? That doesn't sound right to me. Spending money is a skill, and blind self satisfaction does not hone it unfortunately.
Well as I said your mind is more than your conscious thoughts. Usually if we walk near a ledge we make a conscious effort not to step over it but you arent actively thinking about not dieing, it is automatic, it doesnt need reasoning, but if asked why you'd recognize you were avoiding death
@binsrc altruism is an illusion, it doesnt exist. Altruism is just what wer call selfishness done expertly.