It isn't selfish, helping a person, even if it you do it for your partly own benefit, if you help the other person. That isn't selfish by definition. But there is no such thing as a selfless action, since all the people you know you know by what they reveal to you and you project the rest, every connection you have to them comes from you, so you are only saving the concept of them that you have and your action is self focused, unless you would help them no matter who they are, no matter what they did. Then it doesn't matter if its a projection, because you would help them no matter what there is about them you don't know.

In the end though, the only one who can know if your action was selfish or not is you, but just because your action isn't selfless, doesn't mean that is was selfish, just that is was not selfless. You could ocnsider both of your benefits.

I might also add, that being selfish can yield the best outcome if you know how to be selfish the right way. Look at game theory. You analize the probability of the different outcomes and work from there, you achieve maximum overall benefit through compromise. So if you embrace selfishness and can asses the situation properly,it isn't really so bad a quality.

and jesus said why do you invite your family to eat, not the people of the nation do this things? in that case what different are you doing from the people of the nation? and then i say you that first invite the poor and the needed people first than your family.

Supposing you are right, and there is no such thing as a selfless action, can you offer an example of what would be a selfless action if one occurred? I would find that interesting.

It is with interest that I read all the different versions of human nature, I would like to share a different view that I practice, I have found it is impossible to understand the material world out there (effect world) but I have found that the cause, inner thinking, is possible to understand by any normal person. What I am seeing out there in the material world, is a clear mirror image of my own consciousness, projected onto the majestic screen of life, the material world. Which is a reflection of mind (God) in motion.

selfish is nature truth so it cant be wrong as it is necessary positive and its acts are what allow life from matters

the problem occur in the appliances of that principle in limited conscious of matters conditionned in a creation to a selfish purpose of nature and not for those living conscious

than they must be negative to the condition to express themselves as positive to be a living for acting for themselves

as there is so many underconditionned it become impossible to cross all of them for that positive intention of being naturally, especially as they cant get to see life above that made those conditions ruling them, when selfish as absolute truth of existence nature would limit them to individual reactions means

the more one could limit himself in his condition the more he could get to be true to his selfish positive nature but the more he would be violated from upper instances that dont allow any being under their power to be positively inn, this is my issue but it is not about human selfishness

human selfishness is about another limitation of self living, when that person limit the conditions to free himself from being under and act as selfish nature without respecting any link to it in truth

noone can pretend being natural living that is why everyone is always interested in what nature do, even god especially, so anyone is looking to nature acts for creations lives to get power to his suffocated self waiting to be selfish and express himself to act for, as it is impossible everyone got to compromise himself with a force of being and its representations around from god that he would accept to say himself instead of him

but as truth of nature life is of absolute, that guy would always struggle to be selfish somewhere else where it encourages the stronger to beat the weak in what they get from life

so as you see things are not as simple as you think they are, many more realities are from those conditions effects on living conscious in life

well the nature of love is always to give there are 2 type of people on this earth, givers and takers. it would make me happy to see my soul mate enjoying themself because i know that i gave all my credit to him and made him most important only so i could know that he knows it. takers are ure past but exist in the present of the beginning of ure journey through the life and world which u have created for ureself. we dont exist together we exist alone and the world which surrounds us is our soulmate. the soulmates give and give and in return get a greater gift which they must grow stronger and grow more selfish. but they never take from eachother for they know without the other they would perish it is the nature of love. the takers believe that they are creating and they have the power but really it is the givers that are thinking and creating. one love one life.

Whether the question is whether a hypothesis is scientific or not is possibly important to some. Modern science is mostly running computer programs anymore. Astronomers don't peer through telescopes, physicists don't look at pictures of cloud chamber tracks. It's all data, so much data you couldn't even handle a days worth in a century and it is coming in faster every day. The thing about computer programs is that they operate as monstrous syllogisms and you can get out only what went in. It might work for engineering design, but wouldn't increase knowledge of nature. If this is science, Popper's book is relevant.

your logics are all based on human misery reducing reality to himself value missing in order to take from life any fake recognition of what he wants acting as being positively selfish

first, this soulmate thing your mind accept because of that, is totally not only fake but also wrong

it is a forcing condition that encourage the chaos of truth values giving life to images that would justify the chaos itself in order to keep the same order above the creations in it place and reduce the change to its best conveniences

it is very easy to understand that for any clever person, you wont tell a worker under your command about the truth of your plans in your life, but you would do all you can to put in his mind a positive image of you in your life that would allow him to feel secure in working for your office that is surely related to your life as it is benefit for yourself peace

this is your choice to get completely in the brain wash condition giving a sense of being positive to who join religions and their justifications for that evil must issues to a better world or heaven you got your chair already moving happily waiting for your moves inn or with as your soulmate, but you cant preach those choices as if you were talking from you, which make your intention obvious that you seek to glorify yourself denial and become the same sort of liar than who inspire you that from the book or whatever you listen to as god spirit

love is anyself positively alive by himself life, which means on the ground being totally for your positive happiness that of course could ask from you persistance and resistance to defend what you deserve of love truth

to proove you that truth of pur individuality for positive outcome always, i will tell you the truth of giving,

when you are yourself in your positive truth, giving is natural thing as acting for yourself happiness in being positively living, so when you deal with who is less positive in himself you would get to your less positive to interact with truely, and only the truth of those interactions would constitute a ground for you to lead the only outcome towards your acting value as a living mind, relating positively a living ground to your spirit, what you surely do obviously but completely wrong as abuses for selfishness of negative being seeking for lies and not to act on a positive ground of life

when it is about loving more than yourself which means outside your limitations that you value from you being better, you would find your happiness in the illusion of heaven when you feel desperate and miserable in your condition which would proove how there is no better than yourself to you, and how that kind of love is always for poor or slaves to entertain a positive bound that dont exist with abuses

what you give to be better or to a better place is for you and from your limitations that need a more open space, this is giving in truth and who knows it would never suffer from as he is living the limitations he is opening and doing for himself
so that soulmate stuff that you accept to justify the wrong two instead of always one, exist because abuses are making slaves that dont have any other way to justify themselves being well in seeking weaker than them to recopy the same thing they know wrong being wrong to act for their masters in copying them as justifying their masters lives by theirs would justify themselves being of them wrong

it is very simple to help what you call the past, you only need to care for from what you know being there, there is nothing as that in the plan of god, it is all about material interests in fake positiveness to hide behind, gathering all kind of people and genders and levels for that aim, slavery to misery of being true for the benefit of abuses on existing truth, and pictures god insist to accomplish for his pride taking from what life gave generously to his power above the beast power ruling before more

that is the only issue in human history for god, power increasing on all creations which surely make your happiness and lot of others but some are like me it is not our issue, when you are true enough yu wont be slave of anymore to fear being slave of inferior force

I can: Jesus on the cross.

God suffering the torment of crucifixion and death out of love for all man would seem to amount to selfless action. But then again, insofar as men are god's children, does not god have some part of himself invested in their existence - was even Jesus truly selfless?

My potential objection aside, the idea of selflessness is attached to religion (or perhaps truth?) at the cellular level. An authority higher than the self is required for "selfless action" (that is: action initiated and carried out by the self but having ends which are entirely unrelated to the self - scientific "disinterest" fits in here, as well) to be anything other than a simple contradiction in terms.

That is not to say that "self" and "other" are entirely seperate ideas. Indeed, we invest large parts of ourselves into relations with others as a necessary part of existence. The membrane is permeable. Acts done in relation to loved ones, for example, are not reducible to purely selfish or selfless motives, as the line between self and other is inherently blurred in any intimate relationship.

The line between self and other is pretty clear in regards to strangers, however. Natural Born Altruists? I think not.

Yes, I've heard this theory a thousand times over, notice how it's especially popular for those people who actively proclaim they're nihilists and always brief with their knowledge, as well as this theory, as if it's some revolutionary
science they've figured out on their own. Anyway, I don't think it's correct at all. If you are a really empathic person like me, your gut will say no to this, I'd rather believe that we are all one, and that's why we care and feel sorry for our fellow beings.

To disprove this theory, let's say that I was an atheist, believing that my consciousness ceases to exist the moment my brain stops functioning. My life was totally miserable and I was suicidal. I found a gun, I know that if I kill myself, people will be totally depressed and will miss me forever. But if I act solely out of selfish interests, couldn't I just shoot myself there and then? That would end it all, I both get to die, and I don't need to feel sorry for my friends anymore (that they're gonna be depressed), since I'll be dead. But something would probably stop me from doing that. And that is love and empathy.

Stormalv,

The basis for compassion is the self, it is only when you can see the self in another that there is this compassion, one can even see the self in other creatures and so have compassion for other creatures. Schopenhauer stated that, in the event when one person sacrifices their life to another, sometimes to utter strangers, this is a breakthrough, its not a theory, it not a concept, it just grabs you, and you realize, you and the other are one. Schopenhauer--"The Foundations Of Morality." The foundation of compassion is identification with, and the foundation of all morality is compassion.

Fairbanks,

Sorry, I somehow posted my response to you in your name, I think deleting your previous post, I still do not know how that happened, so please bare with me. I am going to delete it, there is no way however of bring back your previous post, sorry, like I said, I still do not understand how it happened.

So either way it involves Others." Yes indeed, and if it did not, there could be no compassion, for compassion only arises when one can see the self in another, it is in a sense the expaned concept of the self. The more unlike a person or oganism is to ourselves the less likely it is that we will identify with it, or see the self in the other person or organism, a compassionate response would be minimal at best. boagie
[RIGHT][/RIGHT]

I regret I have not read all the posts in this thread and it could very well be someone has answered it. From boagie's logic and how he defines "selfishness" to be a form of "greed" he is correct if it is that motivation itself that prompts us to be selfless towards another. The fact is being selfless in regards to another human being does in fact bestow on the "giver" a sense of "gladness", that it can be assumed the only motivation would be in how it makes the "giver" feel. If that "generosity" is the result of thought, it does indeed have selfish overtones, yet if it is "instinctive", it is love. Only the giver know's for sure. In the context in which I use the word "instinctive", "natural" can be used as well.

William

William,

You've made one misinterpretation here, I did not define selfishness as greed. My focus was upon the mechanical, how does the action which we preform come about? I tried to point out that the individual cannot act against his own will, so in order to act, one must will it into being, and thus any action preformed fufills the intent of the individuals will. So, of necessity, all actions are at first selfish, fufilling the individual will first before doing anyone good or harm. The rest you seem to appreciate fully.

Boagie, I guess it is a matter of perception on the individual. I have a hard time distinguishing between selfishness and greed. Nevertheless your point is well taken and I am sorry for misrepresenting what you meant. I hope you can understand mine as well. No harm, now foul. Cheers,:surrender:
William

William,

Yes, there was much confusion throughout this thread, because two conflicting premises were being entertained at the same time. Mine was purely the mechanical approach, that was the intended topic. That all action of necessity is at first selfish, fulfilling the individuals will, then someone tried to make it a moral judgement, a moral evaluation without even realizing the topic of the thread. So, if you did try to read this thread from the start, it would have proved most frustrating and confusing.:brickwall:

First, I'd like to add my amazement of the enduring nature of this thread. The sun may not rise tomorrow, but this thread will still continue. Haha, wonderful!

This is a most-important point; one I'd like to highlight:



I too initially made a value-judgment on this theory when I first read it. The word "Selfish" has, for many of us, dastardly insinuations that we rail against. But the real utility in this line of thought is understanding motivations in a subtle, mechanical way. Understanding this 'selfish' nature does not decrease the value of giving, compassionate or altruistic actions one iota; it describes, not condemns.

It comes back to a subtle understanding of the self, nothing more. Comprehended without all the emotional baggage we bring in, it becomes a tool for understanding and has neither 'good' nor 'bad' provocations.

... at least this is how I see it.

Thanks

Khethil,

Wonderful, you are one of few who where able to understand my position not being a moral judgement, it is refreshing to hear someone summarize with such clearity. Much thanks Khethil!!!

Just trying to get you right: Are you suggesting the last person on Earth would have no compassion for himself?

Billy

Billy,

No he would be in touch with the self within and able to feel sorry for himself. I don't know if you could called it compassion though, what do you think. Does not compassion have to be directed outward? It is like stating that you have certain values, when in fact, if you do not do those values, they are not your values. In light of the individuals self-interest, a first priority directive, I doubt if compassion arises, or could we define self-interest as self compassion? Really interesting question!