Is True Altruism Possible?

[suckmymuscle]

No.  

In my example, there is no conscious thought whatsoever.  You save your own child in order to protect your DNA.  There is an underlying selfish motivation there that does happen subconsciously, regardless of what a person might think while performing the sacrificial act.

You do not, however, save the child you do not know - for the sake of discussion, assume there is no relation - to protect your own DNA.  Given that there is no thought, there can be no expectation of being held in high regard by the family of the child spared from certain death, nor is there an expectation of any other rewards in the afterlife.  That's true altruism, because the life of another is saved without any thought (at all) of reward.  The only motivation is to save the life of another.

And for the record, though I would sacrifice myself as described to save another's child, I most likely would not do the same to save another adult...or even a teenager.  

  Yes.

  Survival of your DNA is not the only selfish motivation there is when it comes to saving children not your own. Other powerful motivations are the training Society does to young men that they should put women and children first, and that a man who sacrifices himself to save a child will survive as a hero in the eyes of many, whilst letting the child die will make him a scoundrel.

  I used the argument of altruism towards others having a genetic base because, throughout most of human history, people who lived closed to each other tended to be relatives, so sacrificing yourself to save an "unknowln" child might actually have selfish genetic motivations as the child is very likely a nephew in second or third degree of yours.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[no one]

just the fact 'sucksomemenoff' called it 'true altruism' goes to show how stupid he is, despite being too smart for mensa and thinking only 5 guys ever went from pride to the UFC. lol

nice work, stupid.

[DroppingPlates]

No, it doesn't exist. The reason that people like to support others, is because they want to feel good about themselves, and that they want to give others a good reason to do the same to them. People denying this, don't know themselves well or are liars. An exception is made for responsible parents.

[Dr Dutch]

This Honey Badger video shows exactly what your talking about

Honey Badger rules. It should run for president...

[wes]

[Raymondo]

I love budgies

[wes]

Me too,awesome birds! 

[DroppingPlates]

Even pets aren't altruistic. If you don't feed them well, they unfriend you.

[Dr Dutch]

I love budgies

I had one just like that!  It was called Rikkie...

[wes]

I had a couple years ago..........I used to manage a huge pet store back in the day.

[Dr Dutch]

I had a couple years ago..........I used to manage a huge pet store back in the day.

Really? When I was a small kid I wanted to have a pet store or work in the zoo...

[True]

 I was thinking about selfishness the other day, and about how we define all morality by interpreting relations between the Self towards others. Most of what passes for selflessness is a convenient form of selfishness. Consider the businessman who invests his money to improve schools around the area his industry is based. He does it because it improves his self-image if not his image as perceived by others. It could also be because the children will be his future corporate drones, and better trained drones will make him more money. Even if genuinelly cares about the children, it is because he perceives that a life with employment at an office or factory is the best life possible, because to him it is. If to the children in their hearts their ideal life would be to be a musician living on the road outside corporate life is irrelevant to him, because it is not what he regards as the ideal life.

  Now consider philantropy. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have given billions to charity. Have they done it because they truly care about the indigent and destituted? Or have they done it because it improves their imagine with the public, which might lead them to make in profits more money than they have given to the charities? Warren Buffet is a an old man, and he knows his time is almost up. Maybe all those billions are eseentially to buy people to like him, so that he might survive death if only in name. Since he can't live forever enjoying the good life, his only chance for immortality is to survive in the memories of people as a good man. Pure selfishness. The Christians likewise are good towards others because they hope they will be rewarded by eternal life in paradise.

  Now try to imagine altruism in it's purest form. You don't want someone to burn to death in a burning building, or starve or be tortured because you wouldn't want it to happen to you. You transfer to others your own ego. So it seems that even in it's purest form, altruism is a form of self-concern.

  So altruism appears to be at worst a convenient form of selfishness where you benefit others to some degree but hope to benefit from this act more and try to convince yourself that you are benefitting others to the same degree, and at best it appears to be a form of narcissism, where you turn others into extensions of yourself and don't want them to experience that pain because you can and don't want it to happen to you.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

Good post, Sucky. Ive often pondered the same thing myself, but its a fact that there is no such thing as a selfishness act. People always act out of reason for what they want, and not what others want. But I would say there are more unselfish acts than others, and the rule of thumb to live by is; do to others what you want them to do for you.

[Dr Dutch]

Group altruism exists, it's evolutionary valid. In the group itself it's percieved as true altruism.

Says  Dutchguy, PhD in evolutionary biology

[tbombz]

Wow.
I was arguing that very point. I said in my scenario, they would NOT give up their life.
You seem to have taken what I read and comprehended an entirely different way twice--even after I pointed out that you didn't understand.
How does it feel to be so dumb, dumbass?  
I mean, it's seriously shocking how retarded you are.
And what's scary is how sincerely you believe your retarded arguments.

   bro. lmao. re read my post(s). lol.

  i THINK what your now saying is that altruism is possible if the person in your scenario was to choose to save the life of the child, but its impossible in practice because no one would actually do that ? im a bit confused about your intention now that you made this last post.

what i was saying was that all action is necessarily based out of self interest, so altruism in the sense of behavior that isnt related to self interest is an oxymoron and fallacious

.  BUT,i do think someone would save the life of the child in your scenario, even though i dont believe that would actually be "alturism" in the sense of not being related to self interest, in of that i explained someone would do so not because of a society that would judge them, but because they would judge themself. 

[lovemonkey]

Group altruism exists, it's evolutionary valid. In the group itself it's percieved as true altruism.

Says  Dutchguy, PhD in evolutionary biology

But only to very close kin, right?

[A Professional]

  bro. lmao. re read my post(s). lol.

  i THINK what your now saying is that altruism is possible if the person in your scenario was to choose to save the life of the child, but its impossible in practice because no one would actually do that ? im a bit confused about your intention now that you made this last post.

Correct.

what i was saying was that all action is necessarily based out of self interest, so altruism in the sense of behavior that isnt related to self interest is an oxymoron and fallacious

This depends upon how you define the 'self'. Some religions see the separation that exist between life as an illusion. It's subjective.
Even outside of spiritual concepts of it, by extension, all life on earth is related.
But in practical terms, yeah, It's all selfishness.

.  BUT,i do think someone would save the life of the child in your scenario,

I don't. Because there wouldn't be a society to create values i.e.--brave, cowardly, etc.
Society creates values, because they serve the group interest, and in serving the group interest, these values serve us as individuals.
That is why extreme selfishness doesn't serve individual interest: It ostracizes you from society and the benefits you elicit from that society.

A two person universe, with one of those people being a child(follower), would be akin to a god and his creation.
And it doesn't make sense for a god to trade his existence for that of his creation.

[DroppingPlates]

Group altruism exists, it's evolutionary valid. In the group itself it's percieved as true altruism.

Says  Dutchguy, PhD in evolutionary biology

Finally revealed

[tbombz]

Correct.

This depends upon how you define the 'self'. Some religions see the separation that exist between life as an illusion. It's subjective.
Even outside of spiritual concepts of it, by extension, all life on earth is related.
But in practical terms, yeah, It's all selfishness.

I don't. Because there wouldn't be a society to create values i.e.--brave, cowardly, etc.
Society creates values, because they serve the group interest, and in serving the group interest, these values serve us as individuals.
That is why extreme selfishness doesn't serve individual interest: It ostracizes you from society and the benefits you elicit from that society.

A two person universe, with one of those people being a child(follower), would be akin to a god and his creation.
And it doesn't make sense for a god to trade his existence for that of his creation.

i want to discuss more later, but for now i have to go, ill just add this... i believe values (morality) is completely independant of society; and extreme selfishness, as long as its truly "selfish" and your a person with universal values, is self serving and serves any group you may be a part of as well.

[suckmymuscle]

  "Tbombz", I would greatly appreciate if you didn't contribute to my threads. You are a Cumstein who thinks of himself as an Einstein. May I refer everyone to this http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=398910.0 thread, where "Tbombz" appeals to tautological arguments, manipulation of semantics, circular logic and straw man arguments to essentially repeat the same argument over and over again after I shot it down and make it seem like he was saying something new every time.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[Hulkotron]

I had a couple years ago..........I used to manage a huge pet store back in the day.

Bird of peace

[suckmymuscle]

Bird of peace

  LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!

SUCKMYMUSCLE

[tbombz]

Correct.

This depends upon how you define the 'self'. Some religions see the separation that exist between life as an illusion. It's subjective.
Even outside of spiritual concepts of it, by extension, all life on earth is related.
But in practical terms, yeah, It's all selfishness.

I don't. Because there wouldn't be a society to create values i.e.--brave, cowardly, etc.
Society creates values, because they serve the group interest, and in serving the group interest, these values serve us as individuals.
That is why extreme selfishness doesn't serve individual interest: It ostracizes you from society and the benefits you elicit from that society.

A two person universe, with one of those people being a child(follower), would be akin to a god and his creation.
And it doesn't make sense for a god to trade his existence for that of his creation.

i dont see how those different definitions of self would make it possible for an action to be based on anything but self interest.

[tbombz]

 "Tbombz", I would greatly appreciate if you didn't contribute to my threads. You are a Cumstein who thinks of himself as an Einstein. May I refer everyone to this http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=398910.0 thread, where "Tbombz" appeals to tautological arguments, manipulation of semantics, circular logic and straw man arguments to essentially repeat the same argument over and over again after I shot it down and make it seem like he was saying something new every time.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

went through the first two pages when i came across this post

  Newton believed in God in a time when it was almost impossible not to. We are talking the 16th century, man. The amount of scientific evidence back then was so small that even a genius would have no choice but to believe is some supernatural explanation.

SUCKMYMUSCLE

what you dont realize is that all the scientific progress that has been made in the past 500 years has done absolutely nothing to explain the origin and cause of the universe. 

[CalvinH]

Luckily for me I don't know what "Altruism" means

[The Abdominal Snoman]

Luckily for me I don't know what "Altruism" means

I had to look it also my brother