Is giving my opinion to this considered necroposting? I don’t think so, so I’ll do it :)

The root of all evil. Well I’ll have to disagree with you here. Everyone is selfish. So everyone is evil? Not really. You wouldn’t consider Bill Gates an evil person, would you? But he’s selfish in his own ways. Do you know the reasons why he is helping others with his money? His wife wanted to do something good with it. And as you might know when you’re in love with someone then your brain will reward you when you make said person happy. So he’s doing it to make his wife happy (on the most fundamental basis) and is therefor still doing it to get some kind of reward, even tho is it’s only imaginary. Sounds weird but at the most basic level everyone acts selfish. So I don’t think that can be the root of evil. Let’s take a look at something like suicide. I’d consider someone suiciding doing something really selfish, really focused on himself. But is he evil? Not nessecarily. Actually usually not. There’s more arguments for greed being something to cause evil than for selfishness. Bill Gates is not greedy. If he was then he would definitly npt donate most of his money. And he’s not evil. Same goes for suicidal people. They usually are not greedy. Not evil. But they’re acting selfish in one of the most destructive ways I know…

To point two: Humans are designed to be lazy. Some more, some less. You would go insane if you remembered everything you learned. And it’s work for your brain to sort out which information you need and which you don’t. Therefor the brain likes it better if information already are presorted for you, broken down in to what you actually need to remember and not containing all the unnessecary stuff. Try getting not enough sleep over the course of a few weeks. Your ability to memorize unimportant things just for a few minutes will drastically increase. Because the brain is starting to do the tasks scheduled for night during the day. I sometimes can’t even remember whether I showed this funny picture to a friend already or not. When I did it two minutes ago. Especially when you’re stressed out that works perfectly fine and trust me when I say students as well as trachers don’t have the easiest of all jobs -> reducing the amount of information that bombards you helps you keeping your sanity. Simple protectional brain mechanism ;)

The core definition of mathematics. Oh boy… I don’t really know how to pack it in words right now, give me a few hours. That is a really tough one :P

I just wanted to add I’m not a neuroscientist by any means. I got my knowledge from personal experience, talks with doctors (I have talked to quite a few by now as I had a neuronal disfunction in my ears for about 2 years and therefor got in contact with them) and scientific articles about the brain, the human and similar stuff. If you want me to I got access to a huge knowledgebase of phylosophic and biologic articles through my university, even though I’m not studying that particular field.

Greetings

~Pepich~

PS: All above said is not scoentifically confirmed as far as I can tell. Don’t take any of my words for granted!

Okay so I love “deep” topics, and ones that have a “large” variety of opinions, so I guess I’ll through a few things out here: (Disclaimer, I know you guys may not agree with things I say, and same goes for you, so let’s just keep this a respectable discussion :D )

1. Abstract: “I concluded to selfishness,” well if that’s the root of all evil, and if (like pep said), MOST things are done, in their most basic forms, out of selfishness, you might be able to also conclude that man is born into the world corrupted. If we are perfect, then we probably wouldn’t do ‘most’ things out of selfishness. Quite obviously, we are not perfect, and are rather capable of evil. Now, that brings me to another thing: Evil, thing number 2

2. evil - before we discuss it, we must DEFINE it. I looked it up and the top 2 definitions BOTH used the word “immoral.” example: evil = profound immorality. Well, if there’s immorality, then there must also be MORALITY, a thing that most of us today know as “Good, and evil.” Well, who/what defines good and evil? Some say there must be a God or some other superior being that is the ultimate authority and defines what is right/wrong, which would make sense. Others say we were just “born” with morals in us. But if (according to some people), there is no God, yet we are “born with morals,” then SOMEONE had to put them there, because if there’s no God, then there is no ultimate authority and we are floating around living our lives and can do whatever we want (no morals). So in my opinion/belief, evil/good comes down to your belief in a supreme being. Or maybe there’s some other reason for morals that you can think of @Pepich1851 @abstract_flat

3. I think money could be a “root” of evil. Money could cause bank robbery, theft, murder, and so many other things. “But wait,” you say, “Money isn’t in and of itself, evil. So how could it be the root of evil?” Well, the “root of evil” doesn’t HAVE to be something that’s evil! Think about it! It could even be something that is GOOD. For example, I see this cake, and my friend also wants to eat it. He won’t let me have it so I kill him and then I eat the cake. Now, in that example, the cake isn’t evil at all, yet it was still a cause for my actions. I was being greedy over the cake.

Let’s assume the “root” of evil is actually something good like I proved could be the case. Even though the cake (a good item) caused me to kill my friend, it’s still my GREED that ultimately overcame my better judgment. So in the end, I think that:

4. ….most likely, regardless of the “root of evil,” or, the thing that caused us to do evil, it is still our fallen “nature” and corrupt selves that CHOOSE to do the said evil action. So I guess maybe: the root of evil is our own corrupt and evil motives/intentions?

---

another thought: I disagree Pep when you say > Humans were designed to be lazy, some more, some less why? I MEAN LOOK AT OUR BODIES LIKE WHAT THE DEVIl xD (gg) Look at what it’s capable of, and strength that we can achieve. I don’t think you could possibly examine our bodies and say they were “designed” to be lazy. If anything, it’s quite the opposite. Also I noticed you used the word “designed” (to be lazy). well….who/what designed them? a being? an explosion? just more thoughts I thought I’d through at you. Thoughts?

Thanks for hearing my rants, it’s been fun <3

@Deeeedo, @Pepich1851, nice thinking! Deeeedo, I must say, that I to some degree disagree with you. Possibly selfishness is not the root of all evil, because in a way, it is our own selfishness that also causes good (because we do good things in hope of ourselves being good). Also, we cannot truly define evil, because all definitions of evil come from our own inner instincts. I perhaps came to the wrong conclusion, and I now suggest that the root of all evil is rather making decisions that are not good for the future.

As for you, Pepich1851, good thinking. I just did mention how selfishness cause good in the message made with Deeeedo, so I think you would be correct in your point. Again, to say, it would be more logical to think that the root of all evil is really decisions that are not good for the future.

added new information on the “root of all evil” paragraph

removed Environmental Pollution and Corruption of Society because they fit in Philosophy

also changed structure and title

@Deeeedo please quote me correct:

Humans (you said were) ==are== designed to be lazy.

Above sentence does not imply that anyone made them that way but allows evolution to do the job. And it differs the meaning a little.

Giving you the choice to break down a wall with your bare hands, a hammer or a bagger: What would you choose? The bagger ofc. Implied it is fuelled up. Or at least the hammer. Why? You want that task be done asap. Not waste any energy on it when it’s not nessecary. Why? Because of your instincts. So you got more time left for other important stuff. But even if you don’t have anything else to do you’ll still go th easy route. That’s what I meant with lazy there, not the downturning meaning of it “you lazy fool just sleeping all day”. You either find a lazy way to do something or someone else will do it better. Sotf. As simple as that ;)

Back to the evil discussion: You don’t make any choices in your life. You think it is that way but in the end there’s no such thing as free will. You’re a really strong computer. Nothing more. A computer just follows the program and that’s it. Your program is: Eat, sleep, repeat. If possible add fun to keep you sane and healthy. If nessecary add work to get food and shelter. Oh and don’t forget to reproduce please. Your actions are just the computet results of everything that happened to you in your previous life. You have no influence on that outcome. It’s just a big processor in your head that calculates the next best action. So evil can not be based on free will or choices as they don’t exist. Hrm, bummer! So it must somewhat be contained in that very basic program that’s determining your next action that you call “free will” or “choice”. Humans are selfish and if not taught otherwise greedy. That’s normal human behaviour, that’s what we learned. Those who have more food have a better choice of surviving. If someone takes your food and you would starve or you kill him and survive? Easy choice. You always think of your own rather than others. Toss love for now, that’s where stuff gets complicated. I’m on the go right now so I neither have time to do scientific research right now neither have the required silent ambient around me to think properly but try to break it down to the fundamentals of life. Eat, sleep, repeat. Reproduce.

Also I think “evil” is not really a good word. It’s not well defined by any means. If I steal an apple from your tree as a five year old and eat it would you consider that child being evil now? By moral means sure it did steal it must be evil. Still you wouldn’t say that child is evil, would you? And me for making fun of someone else suddenly am evil. But theft > making fun fun of someone? I think so…

That’s it from my side right now, gonna write more later ;)

Greetings

~Pepich~

   @Pepich1851, I agree: humans are just computers that have a program, that takes input from the environment and outputs actions. But, Pep, humans do make choices. We do technically have free will, because free will is the ability to be able to make independent choices; choices are also always, no matter what, influenced by some factors. Without influence, you can’t make choices, because there is nothing you can base your choice off from.

   Also, I think evil is a good term, because it is the most broad and general term for “bad things/actions”. Evil is something completely defined by our own inner instincts, and conveying that instinct of evil in language can lead to many different definitions.

   Those are just my thoughts for now. This is a great discussion! Oh, and I’m using the no-break-space character (here it is: " “) to make the indentations.

added mathematics section in addition to philosophy and changed title

We do technically have free will, because free will is the ability to be able to make independent choices; […]

Nope, nope, nope! If we break it down even further then the program you’re running is in the very end only influenced by complete randomness (as far as we can tell right now). Why? Well physics, here we come! Some might say that if you knew the position of particle in the whole universe, its properties like mass, velocity, temperature and absolute 4D position one could calculate the whole universe in advance. Which would technically mean there’s no free will because everything is already preprogrammed by physics. But due to quantum mechanics we can happily say ==BULLSHIT==! It’s not predetermined! It’s all RANDOM! So in the end the illusion of your free will breaks down to the randomness of when an electron will be where in the atom, when an atom will decay and where a subatomic particle will actually appear. Cause that’s just totally random. Unpredictable. We can give probablities ofc but in the end… Yeah it’s random. As I said. No free will :(

To evil: Exactly that makes that word so unusable! Everyone has their own definition of it…

   @Pepich1851, free will does not matter in decision making, which is a factor in evil, according to my statement of the root of all evil. The reason why free will does not matter is because it is only decisions, that do not respect the future and have the influences at balance (so it is truly only the choice of having a short-term or long-term benefit), that cause evil, and free will does not affect the goal of having a long-term or short-term benefit; rather, personality affects that. If you were to have a choice with a very obvious choice that has the most benefit, then you definitely go with the choice that has the heavy benefit. It is choices like whether to procrastinate or not that cause evil, if you were to choose the choice that has the short-term benefit.

   You may think, if personality determines whether you make decisions that respect the future or not, then it is impossible to change people to cause less evil. Well, personality is affected by environmental factors, so you can influence someone to cause less evil.

lol Deeeedo only replied once as of 11/1/2015

Nope nope nope. You still have that “free will attitude”. Free wilm does not exist. It’s chemical reactions. If I knew every singly atom in your brain and had a computer powerful enough I could predetermine the next actions you will do. If I had more data about the surroundings like the whole earth, I could make even more precise predictions even further into the future. That’s not free will. It’s maths. The first point where it’s not possible to calculate it anymore is when you look at quantum physics. There it starts to get random. Which is not free will either because it’s pure random.

Sure, your actions are influenced by your surroundings. Why? Because they’re just factors being used in an equasion. Let’s look at it like this:

I take an apple. Lift it over the ground and let it go. Physics tell me: It will fall! That’s the first stage. It’s comparable to: If I hit someone it’ll hurt him. The next step would be to say “Hey! If I let it drop from a higher place it will hit the ground harder. But at some point there’s a limit to it!” = “Hey if I hit you harder it will hurt you more but at some point you’ll pass out and there’s a limit to it!”. Take it further: “If I blow at the apple from the side it’ll drift away to the side a little bit” - “If I hit you somewhere else it’ll slightly alter your reaction”. That’s like looking at something from far away, then going in closer step by step, magnifying and getting a better resolution with every little bit. And after you tested it a few times you can make really good predictions of what will happen. Would you call the apple falling down being the apples own choice? It’s free will? No! Because it’s gravity! But if you follow the laws of physics and chemics and maths suddenly you can call it free will…?

Sorry, I’m too much of the scientific guy for this :P I can get scientific articles about this topic on wednesday, I’ll happily get up two hours early and go to university instead of sleeping to investigate more and find proof of my ideas (or disproof ofc). I don’t know how much we got on neuroscience as I’m studying at a more maths orientaded university but it should be fine.

Still I want to see how to trisect a given distance with straightedge and compass! I say it’s impossible. Mathmaticians say it’s impossible. Proove me wrong please and proove all of them wrong, that would be amazing to see :D Just toss me a pic of how you did it, I can do the maths to actually proof wether it works or not :)

Greetings

~Pepich~

@Pepich1851 Something you will never find with anything else in the world is a set of natural morals like what you find with humans. This is what makes me believe that humans are more than big biological computers, since if we were there would be little reason for a natural set of morals. I don’t intend to get into this argument, but I just wanted to throw my say in.

The root of evil is poverty plain and simple. Take countries with no economical issues and you will find a tremendous reduction in crimes in comparison to those with high poverty

Okay, I’m going to change my statement once again to the root of all evil is certain personalities in people.

revamped Root of All Evil

@PanFritz how could poverty b the root of all evil? Keyword: ALL evil. Example: hitler (holocaust) kills a couple million Jews. That is 100% evil, and that was done out of belief that they (hitler/Germans) were a superior race. Nothing to do with money there. Hitler was an evil man acting upon his false belief. Again no money involved

I agree with @L0rdDrag0 prertt sure we are more than “computers.” I mean just the fact that we are here discussing our existence and ourselves is crazy. Why can’t animals do that? Why are we the only things that can discuss and talk about our own existence and are self aware. Definitely leads me to believe we are more than ‘computers’ as L0rd put it.

@Pepich1851 random but you said;

“Free wilm does not exist. It’s chemical reactions. If I knew every singly atom in your brain and had a computer powerful enough I could predetermine the next actions you will do.”

Could you really determine whether I would buy a blue bicycle card deck or a red bicycle card deck? Pff. To say we (in the most basic form) don’t have free will to make our own decisions is pretty ridiculous.

@Deeeedo

Could you really determine whether I would buy a blue bicycle card deck or a red bicycle card deck?

Yep given enough data I could. How does your brain work? Well there’s two option: It uses quantum mechanics to generate random numbers and then somehow interprets those into muscle movement. Which would mean you’re acting totally random and are not controlling yourself at all. Would you consider that being “free will”? I don’t think so. And I don’t think that’s the way the brain works. Why am I tossing in quantum mechanics here? Because everything that’s not quantum mechanics is predictable. I can predict that 1+1=2. I can also predict that when you let go of that apple in your hand that it will drop. I can also predict that when taking hydrogen and oxygen and adding a little energy to the construct that it will go “pop”, form water and release energy. Yes, I can predict chemical reactions when given all the required parameters. So what is happening in your brain now? Chemical reactions causing electric pulses causing more chemical reactions causing muscles to retract to type the text right now and here. It’s all just a bunch of formulas. Your brain is a giant computer. It takes all the data it can get, sorts it, assigns each entry a “valuability” to either store it or toss it and then stores it. And when you want to make a decision the brain will go and look back on that data it has stored, search for anything that might be close to what you gotta do (like “If I want to calculate 1+2 then I can use 1+1=2 => 1+2=1+1+1=3”) and then generate an output.

Ok so what does a computer do? Well it takes all data it can get, sorts it (with an algorithm), assigns each entry a “valuability” to either store it or toss it and then stores it. And when it wants to make a decision the computer will go and look back on the data it has stored, search for anything that might be close to what it gotta do and then generate an output. That’s basically how modern computers work. If there’s a decision to make (like if (a = 0) then do foo else do bar;) the CPU is smart enough to store what happened last time and act correspondingly. Your brain basically does the same. Yeah it can alter the algorithm it uses to sort, value and store as well as the algorithm to find matching data sets and all that stuff. But the underlying techniques are the same. Say what you want, you can’t deny science.

To say we (in the most basic form) have any free will to make our own decisions is pretty ridiculous. Because our brain just takes all inputs it can get and generates an output. Calculations. Algorithms. Maths. Why can’t we do what we want to do? (Yeah, that’s a transformers quote lol (slightly altered))

Why can’t animals do that? Why are we the only things that can discuss and talk about our own existence and are self aware.

Nice how you classify the human as a “thing”, that’s the first step to take away the free will, you’re on a good way my friend :)

Ok no seriously animals are just more basic computers. They can’t compute nearly as many inputs, neither can they store as much data. They don’t live long enough to optifine their algorithms far enough. They got to care for food and therefor don’t have the time to think about stuff like that. We got enough money in the supermarket, we don’t need to waste energy to think about that. Humans are lazy. If they don’t see an advantage in doing something they won’t do it. But Humans are curious as well, they just want to know. Why? More data = better output. Google knows that principle really good :) So we don’t think about how to get enough food because we don’t have to but then think about how the world works because we’re curious. We’re not curious about where our food comes because it doesn’t matter to us. We’re so spoiled by now that we just don’t care anymore. But hey, how the Human brain functions sounds interesting so why not investigate that? (Btw there are others seeing different parts as being “interesting” that’s how the species survives. You need diversity else it would kill the species. Natural protectional mechanism.)

Can you proof we’re the “only” “things” that can do that? What about those aliens out there? You don’t know. Cause the data input was not enough. Get more data. Get more precise output. And yet again the same principle. Amazing how we see that everwhere, isn’t it?

How would you explain the brain if not with the “it takes inputs, computes them and gives outputs” attempt? Please try to explain that :)

Towards evil topic:

Just to get that straight I really am sorry for what happened in the past so please don’t be offended by me taking this in a really scientific way now and just analyzing what happened without showing any emotions. What happened has happened and we cannot alter it. I wish it didn’t go the way it did but now the only thing we can do is learn from it.

PanFritz how could poverty b the root of all evil? Keyword: ALL evil. Example: hitler (holocaust) kills a couple million Jews. That is 100% evil, and that was done out of belief that they (hitler/Germans) were a superior race. Nothing to do with money there. Hitler was an evil man acting upon his false belief. Again no money involved

Do you even history? Seriously. Do you? Hitlers aunt was a jew. Did he kill her? No! Did he hate jews? No! Where jews the actual reason he did all that? No! Obviously not! Was it because he thought germans were superior? No! It was an excuse to do so. He said those things because the german population was broken down after WW1. This land I’m on right now was part of the french conquered zone. Can you imagine how it feels when there’s some other culture coming into your land, taking away your house beccause they want it, take all the ressources away from your beloved country cause they want them and in the end you can’t do anything about it except for shutting up and work in the hope not to get killed? There was an immense amount of hate from germans towards french. And the other way around. Sadle there still is. He got denied at arts school. He felt as the poor little boy that everyone overlooked and wanted to change that. So he used the opportunities he got. Used the fears and angers of the germans. And he did well on that (viewed from a scientific point looking at how he managed to manipulate millions of peoples. As I said I’m not looking at the morals here in any way. Hitler has done things I don’t want to remind myself of. I can’t stand unnessecary cruelty. I can’t stand death. But I’m a german so I have to. And appearantly that’s good as you appearantly forget what happened when you don’t.). We will not forget him anymore. He achieved his task. He no longer is the poor boy that people looked at him like. So please next time do some research on a topic before mentioning it. Especially a topic of that impact. You’re throwing in the lives of several million people here and got it all wrong. That makes me sad. The fact that you didn’t research this topic (especially this topic (Hitler, WW2, the reasons, etc.)) before using it to show your point. I could continue to talk about german history and why WW2 was going to happen no matter what and Hitler was just the one final drop to it giving it a certain direction, giving the population an enemy and proceeding to extend his powers but I won’t. If you want me to message me in private, no need to do it here (I HOPE so!)

Pan, still the reason is not poverty I think but greed maybe. If you can bring it down to a reason at all I’d still say greed > poverty. But still evil is not well defined and therefor I think it’ll be hard to find an actual cause as different things are differently evil to different persons and in different environments. Not enough data input to fill all the variables in the equasion ;)

Greetings

~Pepich~

holy fuck, dat responce tho

revamped Root of all evil for realz

==JUST A REMINDER==: this is supposed to be a friendly discussion, and you’re all doing good at being friendly! Just a reminder.

About the definition of evil…

Evil is something already defined by our instincts. It is something that you already know of; we can have a variety of instincts, but the instinct of evil always has something in common: evil. We cannot define evil in words; we cannot explain the instinct. It is something simply there, or something there as a blessing from God (to help us distinguish good and bad).

added derp easter egg

Also, @L0rd, this isn’t an argument… it’s a debate. :-)

http://bfy.tw/2ea7 http://bfy.tw/2RcA

removed derp easter egg