Humankind - Nature's Biggest Blunder or Greatest Sucess ?

The Purpose of nature simply, is to survive. For life to appear was already very unlikely, so of course nature would try to ensure this consistency. In order to do this, organisms are at constant pressure to evolve and adapt to their constantly changing environment.

We all, as humans have made ourselves stand out in nature's massive number of organisms.
Our first advantage was the development of intellect, that we became smarter than anything else on the planet. However, with this intellect, we started to be able to have a range of emotions, including concern for others' well being. We all helped each other, from the healthy to the sick and dying. By co-operating, the human race grew powerful and learned to manipulate the world like never before, utilising mankind's greatest feat - technology. Humankind has all slowly learned more about the earth, but instinctively - humans always came first. This resulted in mass exploitation of the environment. The Earth was changing at a faster rate than ever before - too much for most organisms to cope. Not even evolution, which developed humans in the first place, could match our speed. Most natural habitats have been destroyed, many species gone extinct and our climate changing faster than ever before.
So as a result of nature's will to survive, us humans have developed, and now we're destroying the rest of nature. At the current rate of natural habitat destruction, it wont be long before the world has lost almost all its natural habitats.
However, something can be done. If we stop all this exploitation, nature will eventually take back its land (there goes all our modern products). But this would not be an option - most would find it unethical to remove peoples homes, blow up cities and alot of other things that will pretty much kill off alot of the human population - even if it was for the benefit of the Earth.
Our own superiority will eventually lead to our downfall - once ecosystems collapse, there will be a massive chain reaction affecting everyone and everything worldwide - the most easily manipulated - the climate. The climate will probably change drastically in the next 50 to 100 years, raising sea levels, promoting more weather phenomena and a more hostile environment. The human race will be devastated by these changes but luckily nature will almost always recover (given time). A worst case scenario would be a mass extinction of the Earth directly due to human actions (e.g Nuclear War)
Now the human race is not all bad, technology has its uses. The problem with before is that we learned quickly, but not quickly enough to realise the consequences of our actions on the environment. However, the Earth is not all there is - we have discovered stars, other planets, galaxies, and many other things that could affect us. Human technology is currently being used to reduce our negative impact on the earth among other things. But we could do more - other threats lie outside the Earth and threaten the existence of life. What if an asteroid of decent size was to hit the Earth ? It could do more damage than we have done so far. But this is where our primary instincts kick in. We could use our technology to protect the earth from destruction, thus saving nature.

But is all this current destruction of nature worth it ? I predict that we will be forced to retreat to another planet after we've used up all the resources on Earth. Would the evolution of humankind result in natures overall survival or destruction? We'll have to wait and see.

:D

I just felt like wasting a post.

Herbivore vs Omnivore.

In this day and age vegetarianism is believed to hold more health benefits than staying an omnivore.
However, the human species was evolved with the ability to consume both plant matter and animal matter. Ancient ancestors - the hunter/gatherer type suits this omnivore lifestyle. This is due to meat being higher in protein and energy which would have to be required to hunt the animal in the first place (as for hunters). But sometimes suitable prey is not always found and so it is easier to look for fruits and edible plant matter (as for gatherers).

Basically you expend more energy and as a result can obtain more energy at a time. This can be seen in nature with herbivores and carnivores. Many Herbivores spend the whole day eating - a constant energy gain and release (moving around slowly looking for food) while carnivores can chase after prey and gain a large amount of energy while expending alot of energy to chase their prey.

However, in today's so called 'civilized society' generally, we gain alot more energy than we expend. Of course this results in many health problems such as obesity and cancers or other illnesses. Eating meat without hunting for it in the first place is a great way to get obese - unless you have a way to use the energy obtained (physical exercise etc). Because plant matter has less energy that can be obtained than animal matter, vegetarianism is much more suitable for people who dont expend as much energy as ancestral hunters which is the majority of society now. The rise of obesity is expected as more people are less active due to the convenience of technology and simply there being too much food available in certain parts of the world.
If humans were to return to ancient ancestral ways, obesity would not be a problem anymore and the people that survive will be more fit and healthy that many people of today (although if today's society suddenly had to resort to hunter/gatherer tendencies i think half the worlds population would probably die - just goes to show how weak the human race has become).

I am aware that survival rate of hunters/gatherers is probably somewhere around 50-70% but at least the weak are left out of the gene development so that a stronger human race can continue to develop.

Free Will

What is free will ?

The ability to make your own decisions ?
The ability to think freely, without an external influence ?

I think we dont have as much free will as we think we do.

1. Animal instincts.
This will be a list of things that are instinctive to humans, as in somewhat difficult to overcome with willpower or things do automatically without thinking.


-Fight or Flight
-Hunger
-The urge to reproduce (males)
-The motherly instinct, caring for young (females)
-The Fear of Dying
-Staying with your own kind
-Adapting to environments

Hmm... im sure theres more, but i cant remember right now.

2.Influences when we're young
We are easily impressionable when we are young. The younger we are, the more impressionable. Lets say religions, if your taught them from since you were a baby, it would underlie all your thinking and be very hard to get rid of. Even past events may have changed some person in some way to make them react differently to another situation. Depending on how you have been taught, or how people have treated you, you can also act accordingly. Whatever determines your habits and personality depends partially on these influences.


3. Genes
I've noticed that your parents also largely determine your personality, like if your Father and mother is fairly passive, you are also likely to be passive. Obviously more seen in physical appearance though. It also seems to determine your intelligence or other mannerisms.


AFter all that , free will is not as free as it sounds like it should be. What if all these influences were removed ? Whould we be lifeless, devoid of any personality or thinking ? Or would we be the first to think freely and take on the world from nothing but your own perspective.

We are all products of our past.

Heaven and Hell

The existance of heaven and/or hell has been disputed between atheists and religious people for a long time. However, from my logic, i find a slightly different case.

1. Hell

Hell is supposed to be the place where you get punished for your sins through torturous ways. However, we all have the ability to adapt- it is hardwired into all of us. This would result in adapting to the constant pain and suffering depicted in hell. People would get used to the pain - like a battle hardened warrior, and hell would become much less effective. Also, after spending a long time in hell, you would result in becoming pessimistic if your not a moron. This would also make the torture less effective. If hell cant do all these things, then it cant exist.

Actually the closest thing to hell would be where people could get dissapointed continually - which in order of that to happen , something has to bring their spirits up before it comes crashing down again. This of course, is known as planet Earth today.

2. Heaven

Heaven is supposed to be where everyone can coexist happily together for very long , if not infinite amounts of time. I find that this is impossible as everyone has their own different versions of heaven and no one thing can satisfy everyone. If people have to change values , to get into heaven, then it cant possibly be a heaven worth going to.

If heaven were to exist, it would be a massive illusion where everything seems to work your way while every person is actually fake. Everyone would have their own versions of heaven to go to. We wouldnt be able to tell the difference if we're dead. If you ask me, a heaven without some real people (resulting in conflicts and becomeing not heaven) cant be any heaven i can imagine.

To summarise, there cant be a real heaven and hell, there is only this reality which is a mixture of both. It has its bad points and it has its good points. I really cant picture them separated.

(On a later note) I still must consider the opposite though (to be fair), there is much unknown about the universe, other dimensions and other things, so anything is possible, even if only in our dreams.

Luck (its about time)

Luck should be shared equally throughout ones life as well as through the world.
When i say luck, i mean good fortune, and when i say bad luck , i mean bad fortune.
For example ... Lets say someone has really bad luck one day. Then , there would either have been good luck previously , or good luck will soon come.
Unfortunately, its difficult to say when an incident of good luck will balance out an incident of bad luck or if its already been balanced out.
Heres my observations:
1. Someone who wins the Lotto usually has some drawback or other afterwards. This could include being robbed because everyone knows you have alot of money or even a family dispute over who actually won the money.
2. You find money some time in your life, then you lose some money in your life.

Im not saying that you'd get good luck in the same form the bad luck was in , (finding . then losing money etc), it usually is in another form.

Also, the incident of good luck might not be visible, like being unaware that you narrowly missed dying etc.

Other peoples bad luck can also cause bad luck or good luck to other people. E.g A car crash delaying a schools starting time to the kids delight :D

Due to the inability to monitor everyones lives at once and see if luck is actually shared equally , my theory cant be disproven =D

This way of thinking however, may trigger optimism when bad things happen and pessimism when good things happen though.

But what it does do is get rid of the belief that ones life can be all good or all bad, if someones life seems too good to be true, you probably dont know about the person enough.

It also reduces jealousy because if something good happens to someone else , you can count on that something bad has happened or will happen so everyone is equal , even to the one who has nothing happen to them.

The Placebo Effect

Most people have heard of the placebo effect, but why does it happen ?

In most cases, simply believing that you will get better from a sickness actually does help you get better.
My explanation is that we do actually sub-conciously control our so called 'automatic functions' like the immune system in this case. When you think you'll get better, you make your immune system work harder to rid the sickness. To what extent i do not know of, but im sure it would work for other systems in your body.

One thing is for sure is that we do control our bodies more than we think we do. A large percentage of the brain seems to be unused for most of the time. Perhaps this part of the brain is used for controlling the normally automatic processes in the body ? Who knows. It may be discovered one day to be completely different.

To sum this up, The placebo effect can be extended to my theory that
'We can sub-conciously control our own normally automatic functions' but should not have a very large effect without the obvious actions that can be done to improve bodily functions.

E.g balanced diet = better immune system and other things
E.g Some sort of exercise = higher muscle development

So basically, positive thinking towards health actually does help the body in some way, but towards other things , it would be an entirely different matter.