733. Motivation For Behavior: The Difference Between Deficits And Benefits

733.  Motivation For Behavior:  The Difference Between Deficits And Benefits

I value rationality as one distinctive and superior quality, by which human individuals differ from instinct driven animals.  This is a premise, which many people do not share with me.   I am fully aware that those, who value being guided and determined by unconscious instincts and inclinations more than by rationality, cannot and will not agree with the following application of rationality on how to live.      

As I myself am both a non-breeder and non-religious, both are for me expression of the same rationality.   As a member of a non-breeders' group, I asked some puzzled question to religious non-breeders.    
In the entries 656. The Placebo Church  and 441. An Ingenious Self-Deception I have already expressed my wondering about the weird Unitarian Universalist placebo church.   My question to a member thereof concerning what needs and deficits were met, ended as an impasse.  

I did not get an answer, I did not even succeed to convey my question.   The exchange has inspired the following thoughts.

 

A rational person has an awareness for the importance of evaluating behaviors and actions by the consequences and by comparing them with alternative options for its causes and reasons.

1.  One important factor is the baseline.   Behavior improving the subjective wellbeing can have one or both of these effects:  It either restores the baseline to the neutral state of neither pleasure nor displeasure, or it adds pleasure above this baseline.  
This is an important distinction, because I consider only this baseline of not suffering as a human right, while seeking pleasure can only be justified when nobody else is harmed or taken advantage of.  

2.   People, whose behavior is caused by a deficit, often get additional benefits above the baseline.   Sometimes they consciously only recognize the benefits as if gaining these were the original purpose of the behavior.   They are unaware or in denial that the initial purpose was restoring the baseline.   

3.   Another factor is the experience of cognitive dissonance, when people want to be more rational than they really are.  They want to consider themselves as rationally seeking benefits and not as if they were helpless robots succumbing to urges.   The denial of urges and deficits is a method to avoid experiencing cognitive dissonance.

4.   There are different kind of subjectively perceived deficits.   Deficits can be innate or acquired, they can be physical or cognitive.   Rational behavior requires thinking about all relevant factors and about the long-term consequences before coping with the perceived deficit.   Just following the urge is often irrational.   

 

A rational way of life requires people to scrutinize carefully all their inclinations to behave.   For this purpose they ask themselves several questions.   The ones in the not comprehensive following list are important

• Which is my baseline? 
• Do I only get benefits or are there needs, deficits, urges, wishes, discontentment, dishomeostasis hidden behind the experienced benefits?
• What would happen, if I resist the inclination to this behavior?
• What alternative behaviors are there?   

When interactive behavior includes reciprocal impacts by and upon others, rational persons apply these questions to others as much as upon themselves.   Not only the choice between respect and disrespect depends upon this, but also the choice between supporting and refusing to become a victim, between continuing the interaction and avoiding the person.

A few examples:

1.  Food
 

When a hungry, not obese person eats, this is rational.
When a not hungry but also not-obese eats something for the pleasure of the taste, it is unnecessary but not irrational.  
But when an obese person eats because of boredom, stress or a similar reason, then this is irrational.

2.  Alcoholism as an addiction
 

2.1.  There is no physical or real need for drinking any alcohol at all.   Not drinking is completely rational behavior. 
2.2.  When someone drinks restricted quantities of alcoholic beverages with sufficient intervals in between, this can be be considered as rationally enjoying the taste.  
2.3.  But in the case of someone feeling an urge for alcohol intake to reach the baseline, then this is an addiction.  
In the case of denial, the addict claims to drink for pleasure and does not recognize and acknowledge the urge.   He is not aware of the irrationality of his drinking.    
2.4.  An alcoholic having asked and answered the questions can admit, that his urge to drink alcohol needs an approach, which is anything between self-control and therapy, but not drinking. 


When irrational behaviors are reinforced or even instilled by a social norm, they become an even more devastating problem.   This is unfortunate for the many people, whose life would be better without acquired, harmful urges.   

There are special dynamics at work.  People are trapped, because they are allowed to consciously experience some benefits.  These benefits do not suffice to rationally justify the amount of sacrifices, which are required.   But unconsciously these people also experience the additional relief of some urge, of which they are consciously in complete denial.   This denial impedes them from considering and attempting other, more rational methods to deal with the urges.  
The urges instilled by the social norm lead to behaviors, which override any healthy individualistic approach towards living in a balance of giving and receiving in the exchange with the social environment.   By these social norms, people are deformed towards willingly allowing to be exploited and taken advantage of while being mistaken as being important and useful.   

These victims are not aware that the social norm serves only the interest of those, who use their power, influence and greed to usurp more such advantages. 

Two of these instilled behaviors are breeding and religious behaviors.  Breeding and religion have one aspect in common with alcoholism.   There are enough non-drinkers, non-breeders and non-religious people as evidence of the existence of alternatives.

3.  Breeding
 

3.1.  In modern western societies and even in some others too, there is no individual need for breeding.   Not breeding is a completely rational behavior. 
3.2.  Under some limited circumstances in the past and in some remote places, the survival of old people depended and depends on raising children.   These people have no need to belief in alleged benefits of breeding, they are succumbing to a necessity.  
3.3.  But someone feeling an urge to breed only for reaching the baseline has a serious problem, like an addict.    
As children cannot be undone, once the mistake was made, breeders are usually in denial of any remorse.  They insist that breeding has brought them benefits.   They do not recognize and acknowledge to have succumbed to an instinctive or instilled urge.   They remain unaware of the irrationality of breeding.     
3.4.  While breeders are consciously in denial, they implicitly often show a glimpse of belated rationality, when they stop further breeding after the first child.   But this is not a conscious change to rationality concerning breeding. 

4.  Religion

4.1.  A rational way of life is not deranged by any religious behavior.   A rational, responsible and considerate treatment of others requires rationality and the absence of any religious behaviors.   No rational person is religious.   No religious person is rational.
Religion manifests itself by observable religious behaviors, which not only include personal sacrifices of money, time and comfort, but even worse it also determines how others are treated.   

Weird ritualistic body movements only impact one person.   But often religion can cause as much damage as an alcohol addiction.     When someone wastes the family money on church donations and his time at the church service instead of with his partner, he inflicts damage on others for irrational reasons. 
Worse are those, who transgress, acquire religious forgiveness and feel free to continue transgressing.   A man, who by following his polygamous religion copulates with other women, deeply hurts his monogamous partner who experiences this as cheating. 
4.2.  Religious behavior is an expression of a belief, which can never rationally be justified.   What is based upon science and evidence, is not a belief.    Only pretending by outwardly imitated religious behavior can sometimes be rational self-defense, when needed for self-preservation.   
4.3.  Religious people's denial is extreme.   I have repeatedly asked religious people, which urges, deficits and experienced dishomeostasis causes them to be religious.   Asking this questions seems futile.  They just seem not to understand.  They enthuse about all their emotional benefits and even feel offended, when I keep on asking about the deficits.  These deficits are the core of what makes them religious and distinguishes them from rational people.     
4.4.  Some religious people overcome their denial.   When they finally get rational, the only possible reaction is to free themselves of all the religious beliefs.   But while remaining a believer, no religious person will ever admit, that they feel urges towards merely reaching a baseline of basic wellbeing, which rational non-religious people already have without any religion.      

Therefore, breeding and religion are as irrational as alcohol addiction, the only real difference is the social norm, which encourages breeding and religion, while alcoholism is considered deviant.

717. The Difference Between Animals And Humans

717.   The Difference Between Animals And Humans

Some people deny, that there is any decisive difference between animals and humans.   To me such a claim seems to be made by those in need of an excuse for allowing themselves the behavior of animals in disregard for the consequences. 

The most significant difference is the human ability of memorize sufficient knowledge and experience, which enables only humans for the long term anticipation of the consequences of their behavior.   Thus they are capable to recognize the harmful effects of instinctive behavior to an extent, which can lead to the conscious decision against such behavior.  

Under natural conditions, at some times animals find plenty of food, at others none.    Their instinct to eat as much as possible to store body fat is an evolutionary advantage for survival.   Until 10 000 years ago, and sometimes even much later, this was also the case for humans.
Today the reasoning ability enables humans to not always give in to the impulse to eat, because they want to avoid the anticipated consequence of obesity.    More precisely, the reasoning supplies the knowledge, but the balance between the power of instinctivity and the counter power of rationality and willpower determine the behavior.   Therefore some people are more than others able to keep their weight between healthy limits.  
Overfed pets just get fatter and fatter. 

It is the same concerning the survival of the species.    Animals do not hesitate to copulate, when they are driven by instincts, because they are unable to know, that at some time later, they will be severely punished with the atrocity of giving birth and the burden of raising the offspring.    

Only humans are capable to recognize early enough, that the survival of the species and procreation is a form of self-harming for the individual person.   The cognitive ability of a considerable number of humans to consciously reject procreation is a very unique trait of humans. 

The critical cognitive distance from instincts and the resulting freedom of decision is therefore what makes humans unique.   This ability to prevent self-harming comes along with the ability to also know, when the own behaviors cause harm and suffering to others.

 

When a cat catches a bird and drops it somewhere seriously wounded, the cat lacks any ability to recognize the suffering of the bird.  The same holds true too, when animals seriously hurt each other during struggles for the alpha position.   Animals cannot know, when the side effect of their instinctive behavior is strong suffering.
Humans can know this. Therefore it cannot be morally justified, that many humans use and consider their cognitive qualities only as a tool serving a more successful application of their instincts.   This aggravates the suffering of others instead of avoiding and preventing it.  People, who consciously follow their instinct, are knowingly cruel.  

This means that the cognitive ability to recognize the consequences of the own behavior brings along the moral obligation to avoid harm and suffering of others as much as of oneself.

 

Unfortunately, many people live by double standards.   When they benefit from using their rational brain, they do it.   But when others are concerned, they allow themselves willingly to be ruthlessly determined by instinctive drives. 

The same hunter, who during the day shoots animals feeling entitled to do so due to being a human, nevertheless claims in the evening his right to follow his animal nature by copulating like an alley dog with a prostitute, not perceiving the woman as an abused and degraded human being but only as an object.   Shooting at humans of another country or ethnic group driven by the ingroup-outgroup instinct, he also has allowed himself to be controlled by an animal instinct, even though his reason could recognize this as absurd, as animal but as certainly not human.

Who feels superior to animals due to being human should also be congruent in not giving in to his own animal urges.    Excusing and condoning animal behavior by misrepresenting it as the human nature is not only absurd, but also the consequences are fatal, usually for all parties involved.

699. Is The Own Body A Merchandise?

699.   Is The Own Body A Merchandise?

"French MPs have approved a bill that will penalise anyone paying for sex.

The bill, which was adopted by a vote of 268 to 138, with 79 abstentions, establishes a fine of at least 1,500 euros ($2,030) for buying sexual acts."

"The 1,500-euro fine is for first offenders - subsequent offences could be more than double that."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25217185

There are some more articles concerning the controversial aspects.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/opinion/frances-new-approach-to-curbing-prostitution.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/05/france-s-new-prostitution-law-targets-johns-ignites-national-debate.html
 

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2013/12/across-europe-growing-sense-legalized-prostitution-isnt-working/7777/

Opposition to the new law comes not only from men, but also from misguided feminists, who are probably too desensitized to be aware of the fallacy of their thinking.  

Prostitution fills the asymmetrical gap between the magnitude of most men's biological urges and the lack of the same amount and urgency in the majority of women.   If women would enjoy copulation without emotional attachment and without commitment as much as men, enough women would want this and no men would have a reason to pay for it.
  
Prostitution is enabled by the combination of the asymmetrical male urges and men's onesided advantages of physical and/or economical power.

There are two fallacies in the demand for legalized prostitution:

Fallacy 1.

Prostitution is called sex work.   Whenever there is no direct coercion, it is alleged and claimed to be a more or less fair deal.  
It would only be a fair deal and a free choice in the case, when a woman has a real, not only a legal right and chance to get all the schooling and training she wants and a well paid agreeable job, and when in spite of this she nevertheless prefers to sell the self-abuse of her body.     
Defining a woman's last straw in a dire need for survival as a free choice and as a fair deal is a fallacy of desensitized people. 

Fallacy 2.

There is a claim, that women should be completely free to do with their own bodies, whatever they want, including selling it.  

If this is to be accepted, then this has to be applied fully and with no other restrictions.   Women then should be given the full freedom of choice, how to use their bodies as a source of an income and what kind of harm they are most willing to suffer.
  
Right now, except selling blood, in most countries other methods are not legally available.   If there are illegal practices, the owner of the bodies get themselves very little, while criminal agencies make profit.   

Comparing the non-financial costs and benefits, prostitution is undoubtedly the worst option for the abused women themselves:

1.  Prostitution 

When a prostitute sells her self-abuse, she serves as a toilet for a selfish man's body waste. 

The costs for the women are the disgust and agony during the recurrent abuse and the long-term psychological and physical damage, for example often substance abuse and the inability to ever emotionally bond with a man.
 

The only benefits are what the abusers perceive as pleasure.  

2.  Selling body parts

Would the women be allowed the choice to sell a kidney (or any other body part, which can be sold without disabling oneself) instead, this would not merely enable a man to acquire selfish abuse, but it would help someone to survive and it would also safe resources needed for the general health care.   Recurrent dialysis is extremely expensive and inconvenient.   A woman (or any person) could be paid the amount of money saved by preventing some years of dialysis.   

The costs for the women are the risk of an operation and the loss of one kidney.  
 

The benefits are for all persons getting off dialysis and having a normal life with a working kidney.

3.  Selling unwanted babies.

Even the uterus and its contents are a part of a woman's body.  If unwillingly pregnant women are allowed any choice at all, it is between abortion and donating the child for adoption.  While it is considered as suitable to impose the paid more general abuse upon women's reproductive area for the mere satisfaction of men's instincts, there is no logical reason, why they should not be allowed to sell the use of the filled uterus instead.    
Women should have the right to the alternative of selling unwanted children or of producing babies for other people as surrogate mothers.  This should be a fair option for the avoidance of the agony of prostitution.  

The costs for the women are the inconvenience, suffering and expenses of pregnancy and giving birth.   For those women, who do not want to breed, there are no emotional costs. 

The benefits are the fulfilling of the breeding urges of those people, who are unhappy without children.  They would be spared futile fertility treatment and more babies would be available to be adopted.  The benefits are also for the babies, who grow up as wanted.

 

Selling body parts and babies has to be restricted as a direct deal between the giver and the health insurance or the receiver, without any greedy third party making profit from it.

Of course I cannot know it, but I am convinced, that many prostitutes would prefer to sell a body part or a baby, if only they were allowed to do this to prevent the agony of being abused. 

Either the own body is a merchandise to be freely used by its owner, then all forms of use have to be legal.   If it is not a merchandise, then prostitution cannot be defined as an exception, only because those powerful men with the influence over legislation are too often themselves the abusers wishing to perpetuate their privileges.   

 

It is an outrage that even in rich countries, some women are deprived of any other means of survival except the use of their bodies.   But it is even more an outrage, that these women are not even allowed a fair choice, how to use their bodies to acquire survival with the least harm for themselves.   

As long as it is considered as morally wrong to sell body parts or a baby, prostitution cannot, neither logically nor ethically, be justified by the right of women to do with their body, what they want.  
As long as it is legally impossible to sell a body part or a baby, men taking advantage of women selling self-abuse as this being their only legal option are abusers, who deserve to be punished.  

683. Research Confirms Biological Reasons Of Women's Plight

683.  Research Confirms Biological Reasons Of Women's Plight

Sometimes things appear to me so obvious, that I am surprised, when they are confirmed by research, which is presented as if it were a novelty.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130921092236.htm

"A recently published study strongly suggests men succumb to sexual temptations more than women -- for example, cheating on a partner -- because they experience strong sexual impulses, not because they have weak self-control."

"Overall, these studies suggest that men are more likely to give in to sexual temptations because they tend to have stronger sexual impulse strength than women do," 

"But when people exercise self-control in a given situation, this sex difference in behavior is greatly reduced. It makes sense that self-control, which has relatively recent evolutionary origins compared to sexual impulses, would work similarly -- and as effectively -- for both men and women,"

The misery and plight enforced upon women as a consequence of the physiological asymmetry between the genders is one major topic of this blog. The devastating consequences of men's recurrent dishomeostasis experienced as the urge to use female bodies for the removal of body waste cannot be explained by the mere lack of self-control. 

The reality of this drastic asymmetry is evident by the fact, that men often obtain the abuse of female bodies not only by payment and manipulation, but also by violence.  The latter is enabled by the unfortunate co-evolution of the urge towards abuse with the superior physical strength to force it upon unwilling victims.   

The evolution of these devastating strong male urges seems to make a lot of sad sense, when looking only at how it serves procreation.   Evolution serves the survival of the species, not the emotional and cognitive wellbeing of individuals.        

Female animals willingly copulate at the moment of estrus due to their lacking the cognitive ability to anticipate the consequences of giving birth and raising the offspring.   

When the human cognition evolved, this enabled women also to anticipate the experience of pregnancy and child rearing.  Some women perceive this is a horror, an abuse of their bodies and a form of slavery.  Logically they attempt to avoid this.  

The human species would probably have been extinct by now, had not the further biological evolution counterbalanced this by hiding the female estrus and by adding more male urges plus physical strength.   Thus pregnancies continued to be caused, no more only by compliance due to ignorance, but also by force upon unwilling women.  


In spite of more legal equality in modern western society, even in recent times the plight of women has been perpetuated by two main fallacies.  Both fallacies deny the physiological differences and attribute all asymmetry between the genders to education and culture.   Both fallacies are based upon the projection of the level of the own urges upon the other gender.

1.  The fallacy of the so called 'sexual revolution' is the fallacy of men, who project their higher urges upon women and claim, that women only feel abused due to sexual repression.   This dangerous male fallacy has proclaimed that if women were liberated, they would as much as men want to copulate like alley dogs and would as little as men need emotional commitment.

2.  The feminist fallacy overestimates men's willpower and unrealistically demands men to have the same easy self-control as women.   This is based upon the mistake to project their own lower female physiological urges upon men.   More about my suggestion for a more rational feminism in entry 566.  

 

According to the study, men's problem is not self-control, but the stronger sexual impulse.   But it is a banality to state, that stronger urges require stronger self-control.    Thus the same ability to exercise self-control does not automatically mean the same success of willpower over stronger urges.  

Thus any abolition of the abuse of women requires a change in the attitude and behavior of both genders.   This requires a shift of the focus away from both fallacies.  Neither the female demand of more self-control by men and nor the male myth of female repression leads to any improvement of women's plight.  

The focus needs to be on the full acknowledgment of the disruption and harm caused by the excessive male urges and a subsequent change of both men's and women's attitude and behavior.  

1.  Men need to acknowledge their instinctive urges for recurrent restoration of physiological homeostasis as asymmetrical and not reciprocal.  They need to learn and take for serious, that women have different needs.  Men need to accept the biological reality, that the magnitude of male urges cannot and will not be requited by women.   Men need to give up the devastating myth of the existence of less consciously felt but equally strong urges as being the women's defect, and the belief in this myth as the justification to overcome this alleged defect by hook or crook as if this would ultimately be beneficial for the women.  This is a male delusion with cruel consequences for the victims. 

Instead men need to recognize, that the only realistic expression of consideration and responsibility towards women means to refrain from commodifying and objectifying them.    

2.  Women need to acknowledge, how little men have control over the automatic triggering of their instinctive urges towards abuse, whenever they are exposed to the perception of stimuli from female bodies.  This is aggravated, when men are in the state of high dishomeostasis.  

Even those decent and nice guys, who have not the least conscious intention to let abuse follow the perception of any unwelcome triggers, need more self-control for stronger stimulation.   Whenever they need all their available self-control to cope with these urges, this may leave them depleted of any further willpower, which they need to cope with other urges.  This may make it more difficult to resist other behaviors like overeating or smoking.   This can be concluded from studies about the depletion of willpower as presented in entry 524.   

(The following may sound like a far fetched speculation: I am wondering, if obesity, alcoholism and other self-harming widespread behaviors of lacking willpower are not partially enhanced by the oversexation of the media and of everyday life.  Not abusing women may deplete many decent men of so much of their willpower, that they more easily succumb to other urges instead.)

 
Therefore women too have a responsibility and a moral obligation to be considerate of men's physiological affliction.   Women need to avoid triggering male instincts towards their bodies, unless they are in private with a man, with whom they either have or want a relationship. 

Most people would agree, that it is cruel to show a bill of money to a beggar and then tell him to keep his fingers off, because it is not for him to have.  This invites the beggar's attempt, if he grabs it, while of course this is not a justification.   The beggar needs willpower not to grab it.   He would not need willpower, as long as people just pass him by.   A woman presenting herself nearly naked or in any provocative attire does the same to any man in dishomeostasis, whenever she wants him to keep off her body.    

As unfortunate as it is, the misunderstandings between the genders lead to antagonistic struggles, in which in the end both genders suffer.   Men are able to enforce abuse, but women react by materialistic exploitation.  
The abuse of women and the exploitation of men can only be abolished by cooperation based upon the realistic acknowledgment of the biological asymmetry.   Studies like the one cited are a good beginning, but a much more widespread recognition of the true problem is needed.      

681. Strong Instincts Are Women's And Men's Common Enemy

681.  Strong Instincts Are Women's And Men's Common Enemy
 

This blog may appear biased, because I am a woman writing about what kind of a mindmate I am looking for.  Thus I am focusing upon the harm done by men's strong instincts to women, which I want to prevent myself from suffering, while the damage done by foolish and also instinct driven women to men does not concern me.   

This omission is no denial of the reality, that both masculinity and femininity as expressions of instinctive roles, which are equally dysfunctional for individual happiness.  

Male and female instincts have evolved in the animal ancestors to complement each other for an optimized success of procreation.  These instincts force people to make both themselves sacrifices for their offspring and they force them also upon others.  By these instincts, personal sufferings does not impede procreation.  
High instinctivity leads to a high identification with and display of masculinity in men and of femininity in women.  The instinctive urges cause different varieties of harm to the other gender.   Masculinity leads to the abuse women's bodies without attachment and commitment.   Femininity leads to the exploitation of men as providers by choosing attachment only to the children.
 

The instinctive attractions are often symmetrical, men with high instinctivity expressed as strong masculinity are attracted to women with high instinctivity expressed as strong femininity and vice versa.    In this case, the most abusive men fall for the most exploitative women and the most exploitative women are also the most prone to become victims of abuse by a bad choice.

But whenever there is a mismatch in the amount of instinctivity, then the partner with the stronger instinctivity is very prone to hurt and harm the less instinctive and more rational person, who does not reciprocate due to not being equally driven by instinct to cause harm.   

Thus, a battle between the genders is irrational.  Both genders have one common enemy, which is the subconscious power of animal instinctive forces over them, of which they are unfortunately usually not even aware.   If both genders would learn to reject, repress and fight against all instincts, which hurt and harm others, then male abuse and female exploitation could be if not eliminated then at least drastically reduced.  

 

Masculinity and femininity are not needed for the forming of bonded and committed couples.   The biological and therefrom deducted behavioral differences between the genders are only biologically needed for procreation.   Strong instincts only serve the compulsive production of offspring overriding any rational decision for or against breeding as a mere choice.  

There is evidence, that the difference between masculinity and femininity is obsolete for couples' happiness, when couples bond as individuals and not as breeders.  This evidence are all those lesbian and gay couples, who are getting married, where this is legal, and who are able and motivated to form longterm bonded unions based upon intellectual, emotional and physical intimacy.  

These couples can be a model for a new form of heterosexual couples, who also are focusing on equality in spite of belonging to different genders.   

When procreation is not the goal, then egalitarian models of choosing and preferring similarity are a rational option for all couples, also for heterosexual ones.   This includes the option to choose psychologically androgynous partners with only a low instinctivity towards being masculine or feminine.   

The happiness in a committed union of two individuals does not require any differences.  If only differences would attract each other, then twins, even identical twins, could not be so strongly bonded and attached as they often are.   Two persons, who are very much alike each other, could become attached like twins, with the addition of physical intimacy.

674. The Omitted Cognition In The Interpretation Of Research Results Concerning Monogamy

674.   The Omitted Cognition In The Interpretation Of Research Results Concerning Monogamy

Research on questions of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology are very valuable methods towards explaining, why the subconscious power of instincts interferes so much with the conscious and cognitive goals and needs of humans.    But it is overdoing this, when humans are mistaken for being not more than animals with a specific instrumental intelligence only serving a better success in fulfilling instinctive urges.    The unique human cognition has some special implications, which need to be taken into account.  


Evolution of Monogamy in Humans the Result of Infanticide Risk, New Study Suggests
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729161558.htm

"Infants are most vulnerable when they are fully dependent on their mother because females delay further conception while nursing slowly developing young. This leads to the threat from unrelated males, who can bring the next conception forward by killing the infant. Sharing the costs of raising young both shortens the period of infant dependency and can allow females to reproduce more quickly."

Monogamy Evolved as a Mating Strategy: New Research Indicates That Social Monogamy Evolved as a Result of Competition
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130729172244.htm

"They found convincing support for the hypothesis that monogamy arose as a mating strategy where males could not defend access to more than one female. Monogamy is associated with low density of females, low levels of home-range overlap, and indirectly, with their diets. The study showed that monogamy evolves in species that rely on high quality but patchily distributed food sources, such as meat and fruit. In contrast, in herbivores, which rely on more abundant resources, social monogamy is rare."

"The analysis did not include humans, and the researchers are sceptical that these results tell us much about the evolution of human breeding systems.

Clutton-Brock added, "It is debatable whether humans should be classified as monogamous. Because all the African apes are polygamous and group living, it is likely that the common ancestor of hominids was also polygamous. One possibility is that the shift to monogamy in humans may be the result in the change of dietary patterns that reduce female density. While another is that slow development of juveniles required extended care by both sexes. However, reliance by humans on cultural adaptations means that it is difficult to extrapolate from ecological relationships in other animals.""

This tunnel view on monogamy is another example, how the special and unique qualities of the human cognition is overlooked or omitted.   

• Humans have emotional and intellectual needs, which can be selectively fulfilled with one specific partner more than with any or with most others.  
• For some humans, these emotional and intellectual needs are stronger or at least as strong as the instinctive needs to breed.
• Humans have the ability to recognize and distinguish other humans as individuals by invisible and exteriorly unnoticeable traits, which can only be discovered and recognized by verbal and cognition based communication.
• Humans have a memory for information gained, which allows them to anticipate the modalities of the fulfillment of emotional and intellectual needs in the future.
• Humans have the ability to comprehend the consequences of their own behavior as a determinant for this future fulfillment.

Therefore monogamy in humans can be more than an evolutionary strategy towards breeding success, instead being an expression of the unique human cognitive evolution towards surpassing the yoke of the full control by animal instincts.    The unique human cognition enables them to decide, that, when and how monogamy is the best choice for a long-term fulfillment of those predominant needs, which are more than just instinctive urges to breed.   

666. Reading Praise Of Animality Makes Me Cringe

666.  Reading Praise Of Animality Makes Me Cringe

 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130605133712.htm
 

"In addition to humans' place in the animal kingdom at a scientific level, Lestel also highlights our essential, existential animality in his opening comments with fellow editor, Hollis Taylor. "A key question now is to know how the human of the 21st century can reactivate his animality and animalize himself anew when all Western thought since the Greeks tells him that he is human precisely because of this rupture with animality," Lestel suggests, building on his critique of the very philosophical foundations of the ethological tradition. "To be human does not mean to have fled animality, but on the contrary to live within it and to let it live within us…we are animals and animals are us.""

Where animality is not only allowed but made the basis of politics, we get Nazis, Fascists and the like.   Animality means the acceptance, facilitation and enhancement of instincts without any consideration for the victims.   

Recent German history is a good example for the political animality of the Nazis.     

• Under the ingroup-outgroup instinct, members of outgroups were murdered, exploited and driven from their territory.   
  
• Under the hierarchy instinct, the most stupid men cultivated their physical fitness and fought by aggression to the top, while the intellectual elite was killed and driven away.    Those at the top were ruthless in keeping their position of power.   
  
• Under the procreation instinct, women were reduced to be wombs, abused for breeding as if they were rabbits.  
  
• Under the gregarious instinct, people willingly merged with the obedient masses.  
  

We need a better world, where humanity is prevalent, and where animality is restricted and controlled by cognition and rationality.  

661. Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

661.  Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

I already mentioned George Simon before (entries 615, 618 and 629).  After having read his book 'In Sheep's Clothing' with unencumbered fascination, I just finished reading another of his books:  George Simon: Disturbed Characters.  

As far as he describes and analyses disturbed characters, it is also an excellent book.   But it seems that between the two books, he has relapsed into the grasp of religion.  He preaches submission under a god as an important ingredient of his suggested alternative to being a disturbed character.  This is annoying.  

I also disagree with his claim, that there is a free will, which gives people an option to either be a disturbed character or not.    

Two other books already mentioned are:
Martha Stout:  The Sociopath Next Door (entry 137)
Robert Hare:  Without Conscience (entry 160).         

All these books implicitly consider socially acceptable, considerate and responsible behavior as the baseline of what can be expected of all sane humans.   They have no answer, why and due to what reasons disturbed characters are deviant from such an baseline.

I doubt, that the qualities constituting this assumed baseline, are sufficiently frequent to justify this assumption.   With a realistic view at the amount of atrocities regularly forced by beings of the species homo sapiens upon suffering human victims, the ability to live by little or not harming others is only found in a minority.   Only they have the privilege of deserving to be called true humans.   Even they are not born like this but get there only after a long process of maturation and socialization. 

My explanation of disturbed characters is derived from looking at the power of instincts and at different levels of the evolution of cognition and rationality.

1. Human evolution as a process.  
 

Phase 1: 
There were early ancestors, who just like animals were automatically and fully driven by instinctive urges, which had evolved for optimizing procreation.  Due to lacking any mental capacities for comprehending the consequences of behavior, instinctive behaviors of animals are not at all impacted by any awareness for harming, hurting and suffering.  

Phase 2: 
The cognition started to evolve.   Rudimentary intelligence became a powerful tool supporting and serving instincts.   But instincts still continued to completely determine the entire behavior, including the overall goal of breeding.  
 

Phase 3:  
The unique human theory of mind evolved.   This capacity of anticipating or evaluating the effects of behavior upon others or upon the own person in the future with the additional help of a memory gives a unique option only to human.    The unique ability to act in defiance of instincts, to override momentary instinctive urges in favor of cognitively preferred alternative behavior is the decisive distinction between humans and animals.    This includes also the unique ability of humans to prefer and decide to not procreate as the result of a cognitive evaluation and perception of the own identity.    Only humans can be childfree by choice.   There are no childfree animals.  


2.  Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees and humans started to evolve separately about 6 million years ago.   Either the common ancestors had at this time already reached the threshold towards phase 2, or chimpanzees continued to evolve at a slower pace in the same direction as humans.   Today's chimpanzees are a good illustration of phase 2.  They show some amazing skills, which nevertheless always serve instinctive goals.  

In entry 648 I presented the chimpanzee Ayumu, who does better than humans on a task requiring fast perception and short term memory, as can be seen in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA
 

While Ayumu's abilities are amazing, they yet are only isolated and not connected to any higher cognitive control.  He only does the task, because he is immediately after every run rewarded with a treat.   He cannot apply his talents for any abstract or generalized goal.  

Solving the elaborated and complex task on the screen is not different from the more simple achievement of other chimpanzees using tools to get food as is shown here. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cp7_In7f88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEDeRJKN0s

But chimpanzees also kill and are aggressive.  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/baby-chimpanzee-killed-at_n_1629318.html

They are even cannibals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU1zUzXkTtw

Other amazing skills and behaviors have also been observed in chimpanzees, but they have never reached any ability as found in humans in phase 3.  Ultimately the chimpanzees are completely determined by instincts, and all their amazing capacities only support these instincts.    No cognition has evolved, which would enable them to act in defiance to instincts by consideration or empathy.


3.  The evolutionary level of disturbed characters

I think that the human evolution is in a state of transition.   The evolution of instincts has been established millions of years ago, while the cognitive evolution is still continuing.   I see the determination of the behavior as distributed along a bell curve between phase 2 animals at one end and phase 3 humans at the other.   The majority of people are somewhere in the middle.  They are acting by the combined impact of both subconscious instinctive urges and some cognitive control. 
 

Whenever persons, mostly men, commit atrocities of any kind like murdering, torturing, raping, cannibalism, slavery, they seem puzzling, when compared with what is required and expected from humans.   But if they were instead compared with animals, they would appear as healthy and sane chimpanzees. 

I consider severely character disturbed persons, including those labeled psychopaths and sociopaths, as beings, whose cognitive evolution has relapsed, failed or is delayed and retarded.    In spite of belonging genetically to the species homo sapiens, they are not less animals than are the chimpanzees.   Their cognition only suffices to serve their instincts and to enhance their being a hazard.  But their cognition is insignificant as a determinant of personal goals.    

Chimpanzees use skills to acquire food.  Disturbed characters have a more advanced cognitive knowledge about other human and their behavior, but they use this knowledge also only as a tool.   They succeed to get more than food, they also abuse woman, gain power or pursue other instinctive and selfish goals.   While chimpanzees just lack rationality, these disturbed characters are instead determined not only by instincts but also by irrational beliefs, which serve to excuse and allegedly justify the consequences of instinctive behavior.  

It is a very sad and unfortunate reality, that the survival of the human species depends on the worst and most devastating forces in people, their instincts.   
While the extreme disturbed characters are a hazardous minority, the same instincts are virulent to a lesser degree also in the subconscious mind of the majority of the non or less disturbed people.   This lesser degree of the impact of the same instincts leads to an unfortunate bias towards too much tolerance for and condoning of harming others.  Many damaging behaviors are thus considered as still in the scope of normality, in spite of the extreme suffering of the victims,   Their suffering is not recognized as an outrage, but as unavoidable collateral damage.   


4. Distinguishing animals from humans

It is an unfortunate fallacy, that the distinction between humans and animals has always been only drawn along the genetic borders between species. 

 
In the christian tradition, humans are believed to be special, because a god allegedly created them to be so, and thus, there is a thinking taboo to reconsider and recognize anyone as an animal, no matter how much he behaves as one. 
In recent times, some people are debating, if there is really any decisive distinction at all. 

But to my knowledge, nobody has ever suggested, that the quality of being human, let alone of being more or less human, is an individual trait of the level of the individual cognitive evolution..
   
I claim:  To be considered as human requires more than the genes of homo sapiens, it also requires sufficient cognitive control over the instincts.  

This has far reaching implications.  

The concept of a general human dignity and basic human rights can rationally only be valid for humans, it is a fallacy to automatically attribute and assign it to all members of the species homo sapiens.   When someone acts like an animal, he should be treated as one.   An animal with the liberty only suitable for humans is too much of a hazard.    

The home of chimpanzees is in the wild, but in the zoo or lab, they are for good reasons kept in cages.  
http://www.ippl.org/gibbon/a-tragedy-in-eden/

If extremely disturbed characters would be recognized as animals lacking the basic human capacity of cognitive control, then this could lead to realistic methods of dealing with them.  Once disturbed characters have done serious harm, they should be recognized as animals and treated the same as dangerous chimpanzees.   The need to be protected against becoming a victim is independent of the species of the animals, which are dangerous predators.

The innate predisposition for instinctive or cognitive determination is not carved in stone, but malleable by education and social influences.    Socialization can enhance the cognitive control over instincts, when there is something to enhance.   When there is no rationality and cognition as a constituent personality trait, then no upbringing can convert an animal into a human, no matter the genetic species.   

All children start as instinct driven beings, they need socialization to develop the capacity to use cognitive control, when this talent is innate.    
When a chimpanzee is raised like a child, as in the tragic case of Moe, this does not stop him from biting off someone's finger.  
(http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Chimpanzees-as-Pets-When-Something-Goes-Wrong).  
I doubt, that a completely instinct determined disturbed character could ever become more human than Moe, no matter the quality of education.   Such a child may not bite off fingers, but bully other kids instead, before committing worse atrocities as an adult.    

Any person is entitled to be given the benefit of the doubt to be human, until he behaves like an animal and thus demonstrates, that he is an animal.   Committing atrocities as an animal forfeits the privileges reserved to humans.  Treating and considering an animal nevertheless as if he were human is an unjustifiable slap into the face to his victim(s).  


4.  The brain

Brains scans have shown differences between the brains of psychopaths and those of non-psychopaths.  

"So, once again there’s some convincing evidence that the brains of psychopaths not only work very differently from those of non-psychopathic individuals, but also may even be ‘wired’ differently than most human brains."
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2013/05/06/abnormal-brain-psychopaths/

I wonder, what would be discovered, if the brains of psychopaths were compared with the brains of chimpanzees.

660. Mavericks, Outsiders, Misfits And Gender Roles

660.  Mavericks, Outsiders, Misfits And Gender Roles


Gender roles are a subset of social norms.   Gender roles accentuate those differences between the genders, which represent instincts.  Gender roles prescribe behaviors caused by these instincts and which enhance the breeding success.   This is not restricted to those instincts leading directly to breeding, it includes also those instincts, which aim at long-term benefits for all future bearers of the own genes.

Gender roles sometimes override people's innate inclinations and cause them to damage their own best interests.  

I consider the dire burden of procreation on women's bodies as biological abuse.   I am aware, that this is a drastic point of view, which can trigger hostility by some people, even though it is a very rational way to look at it.   

Whenever a person has a tumor somewhere in the belly and has it removed by an operation, most people would agree, that this is an ordeal, that nobody in his or her right mind would choose, if there were an option.   
In the case, when it is not a tumor, but a parasite like a worm, the situation is still the same.   This attitude does not even depend on the weight of what is an unwanted growth to be removed.   

But as soon as the parasite is a fetus, which is either removed by a Cesarean session or expulsed by a very painful procedure, then all of a sudden this is not called an ordeal to be avoided, even though a child's birth weight and size is much higher than tumors and parasites usually are.    Instead of recognizing, that this is an atrocity for women, which in contrast to growing tumors can be avoided, many people of both genders have the delusion, that breeding is the purpose of the existence of women.    They are mislead to believe, that having a womb is the same as being meant to use it.  

When comparing the suffering and damage to the afflicted body alone, the distinction between a child at birth and a tumor of the same weight and size makes no sense at all. 



When animals copulate, they follow their instinctive urges without any cognitive ability to anticipate the consequences.    Female (non-human) mammals have no option to avoid the ordeal of giving birth and raising offspring, because they cannot foresee it.  

The instincts leading to human breeding behavior had evolved in the animal ancestors, long before cognition and especially the included ability for anticipation have started to evolve.    As long as the evolution of cognition was evolving as a merely serving tool enhancing the success of the dominant instinctive behaviors, cognition could evolve towards enabling the human brain to amazing progress without causing disruption.   
Only when this evolution reached a ceiling, the conscious experience of individual wellbeing started to bifurcate from the wellbeing experienced as the consequence of maintaining the homeostasis of those instinctive urges, which lead to the survival of the species.  

A slight mutation. a haphazard genetic combination, and the result were and are individuals, whose cognition is not under an instinctive power strong enough to determine the goals and objectives of these persons' behavior.   Either their cognition has advanced one step further or their instinctivity is too low to override their cognition.   
As women, they fully anticipate the unwanted long-term consequences of breeding and they refuse such self-harm.  As men they are considerate and responsible enough to feel morally obliged to refrain from harming women by making them pregnant.   


Those, whose breeding instinct is still stronger than their cognition, but who nevertheless can also anticipate the harm of breeding, experience some cognitive dissonance.   The subconscious urges of the instincts are experienced as strong but vague, on the conscious level they are converted into attitudes, which are congruent with the instincts.   When there are also disparate and incongruent cognitive needs, this causes cognitive dissonance.  This is often solved by the impact of two distinct social influences.   

• Religious belief systems of any content promise rewards for procreation and threaten with punishment for the refusal.    The delusion of a god's power to do so in the afterlife is one example.
  
• Gender roles add artificial and irrational alleged value to instinctive behaviors and those traits favoring such behaviors.   In entry 647 I declared the gender role of masculinity as an obsolete anachronism.   The gender role of femininity is of course just as obsolete.    

Gender roles accentuate all those traits and behaviors, which are based upon physical traits and not on intellectual achievements.     To fulfill and comply with the gender roles does not require any intelligence or education.    Gender roles appeal especially to those, who are deprived of any choice, because they have a suitable body for the gender role, but no brains for anything better.

All those interests, skills and achievements, which require intelligence, creativity, education and sometimes maturity, are gender neutral.    To be a mother by choice requires femininity, to be a warrior by choice requires masculinity.    But the dedication to science, art, literature, languages, technology and other intellectual pursuits is favored by a predisposition, which can be labeled psychological androgynity.  


By unfortunate logic, only breeders continue to contribute their high instinctivity to the gene pool.  The conscious non-breeders do not contribute their more advanced cognition, unless they breed by accident or otherwise against their own wish.   Therefore the evolution towards a more dominant cognition has not completely stopped, but it is very slow.   

Persons, whose psychological androgynity is strong enough to not be overridden by irrational beliefs and non-fitting gender roles, are therefore not only a minority, but they are also under the strong pressure to conform to a majority's expectations.   
In spite of the difficulties of this adversity, it is nevertheless much better to accept being a non-conforming outsider than to suffer from the self-inflicted harm, which follows conforming to what is not suitable for the own innate identity.  


Therefore those who are mavericks, loners and outsiders are this for very good and valid reasons and not at all due to lacking any desirable quality.   They are not the allegedly flawed misfits, as whom they are not only treated, but also pressed towards accepting themselves as such. 
Not all of them have the awareness and self-confidence to understand, that they are lucky to be free from a biological burden.   They are made to feel excluded, while in reality they are spared the breeders' self-destructive and harming inclinations.   Feeling excluded is a fallacy of those, who have themselves very good reasons to avoid to be included.                

649. Polyandry And Polygyny Are Not Mirror-Inverted

649.  Polyandry And Polygyny Are Not Mirror-Inverted

Superficially seen, polyandry by women and polygyny by men seem to be mirror-inverted but identical constellations.    When omitting the blurring factor of what makes a union a marriage, as this differs widely between countries and cultures, both forms of polygamy can be defined as: 

One person of one gender has at the same time more than one non-temporary intimate relationship with a person of the other gender.

But in spite of the superficial appearance, it is far from mirror-inverted.  The subconscious biological differences between male and female instincts cause decisive distinctions.  

Both varieties are in general biased in favor of male decision, male needs, male consent, male attitudes derived from their instinctive urges, while they are imposed upon women without an alternative and without the power to reject it.  Men do have the advantage of power by greater innate physical strength, and polygamy is not exempted from its effects.  

I am saying in general, as I am of course ignorant of the possible existence of exceptions.   

Polyandry: 

I just read in a newspaper about a society somewhere in Asia, where it is the custom, that several brothers marry one woman and they all live as one family.   This reminded me of once chatting with a man, who was looking for a woman to be shared with his buddy.   I already talked about them in entry 300.

Such behavior can be explained by evolutionary biologically and by the specific male instinctive predispositions.  

 

When men perceive women mainly as toilets for their body waste and not as companions for nonphysical intimacy, then it is not at all surprising, when they are emotionally and intellectually much closer and much more bonded to their brothers and to their buddies known since childhood.   

When they trust each other to share their assets and commodities as is a car, a machine or a home, then they perceive the body of an objectified woman just as one more commodity to be shared the same way.  
When men claim the right to and even fight over the exclusive control over the access to their mates' bodies, this does not automatically imply any emotional attachment.    Some men can be indifferent to the woman's affective preferences, but they just want to be sure, that they are only burdened with raising those children, who do carry their own genes and not those of someone else.  

But when men decide themselves, with whom to share a woman by the exclusion of all others, and they feel close enough, then this includes the willingness to also participate in the burden of raising children, who are genetically the descendants of one of them, but of nobody else.  

Polygyny:

Polygyny is much more widespread than polyandry.   It reflects the biological discrepancy between the frequency of male dishomeostasis and the reluctance of many women to cooperate to restore the homeostasis of those men, who do not fulfill the women's emotional needs in return.   Instead of learning to give women, what they need emotionally and intellectually, these instinct driven animals attempt to solve their biological problem by the concurrent use of more than one female body.  

So far, I have not yet heard of any two women doing the same as the men in the cases of polyandry, which means to decide to share one man.  Nor have I heard of any man entering such a constellation by passive compliance with two women's decision.   

Polygyny is a man's decision for his benefits only, and it is rarely welcome by the women.  Where it is a legal option, the second marriage is usually imposed upon the first wife, no matter what she really wishes.   The second and further wives are usually pressed into such a marriage by the family.   

Whenever an additional wife is indeed welcomed as someone to share the burden of household chores with, this is no evidence of the acceptance of polygyny as sharing a man, it really is an expression of the extreme plight and despair of women in dire poverty, who are deprived of the relief of machines or paid help.

But a form of polygyny exists even in modern western societies, but it is usually not considered nor recognized as such.   Whenever a man starts a non-ephemeral extramarital affair with a woman, he creates for himself the benefits of a polygynous constellation.   But the two women involved do not agree.   The first one is either kept ignorant or she is tied by circumstances as having children.  She wants her husband to fulfill his promise of being monogamous, she does not consent to share him.   The second woman is foolish enough to compete with the first wife attempting to take her place and then have him to herself.   Both women suffer, only the polygynous man is motivated to prolong this situations, as long as he gets enough benefits for a low price.

Thus, in the case of the polyandry by the men's decision, the men can often be content and satisfied.   in the case of polygyny, which is installed by a men over more or less disagreeing women, it is also the man, who benefits, while the women suffer.  

Only the balanced monogamy gives women a fair chance of getting as much advantages and benefits as do men.         

646. Science: The Harm Of Procreation To Women - 2

646.   Science:  The Harm Of Procreation To Women - 2

In entry 557 I quoted a study about childbirth as a cause of PTSD.    Another study indicates postpartum depression as another consequence of the sad reality, that the survival of the human species depends upon the biological abuse of women's bodies.   

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130314124618.htm

"A surprisingly high number of women have postpartum depressive symptoms, according to a new, large-scale study by a Northwestern Medicine® researcher."

"The study, which included a depression screening of 10,000 women who had recently delivered infants at single obstetrical hospital, revealed a large percentage of women who suffered recurrent episodes of major depression."

"In the study, 14 percent of the women screened positive for depression. Of that group, 826 received full psychiatric assessments during at-home visits. Some of the key findings from those assessments:"

"Suicide accounts for about 20 percent of postpartum deaths and is the second most common cause of mortality in postpartum women."

Whenever people are driven by instinctive urges to actions with long-term detrimental consequences, they are doomed to suffer later.    Cognitive control and/or the ability to anticipate long-term consequences would help to avoid and to prevent mistakes, but strong instinctive urges override and deactivate such rational protection.
  
Women following their instinctive urges to breed are one example.   Their rational long-term planning for the best way of life is often temporarily blurred.   Once they have the child and get aware, what harm they have done to themselves, it is too late.   They have irreversibly burdened themselves with the obligation to raise the children.  

They have such good reasons to be depressed, that I cannot agree to consider even the severest depression as an illness, but as a very healthy and logical reaction to the doom and plight of being burdened with children.   

640. Interesting Research Results

640.   Interesting Research Results

I have been mentioning before, that in my understanding people's conscious attitudes are influenced or determined by their instinctive urges and that as a result of evolution, men and women differ in what is predominant as their strongest instinctive urge.  
If men are driven by strong urges, then towards using a female body to restore sexual homeostasis.   If women are driven by strong urges, then towards breeding and getting attached to children.

The following source seems to supply some evidence:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130213214620.htm

"Mothers are more negative about relationship quality, relationship with partner, relationship maintenance and happiness with relationship/partner than childless women. However, mothers are significantly happier with life that any other group, indicating that children could perhaps be the primary source of happiness for women.

Mothers are also almost twice more likely than fathers to say that their child/ren are the most important person in their life. Fathers are much more likely than mothers to value their partners as the most important person."

The study also backs up my own notion of the importance of sharing and of the preference for the match criteria of being likeminded and similar.

"The survey also revealed how sharing values, a faith, beliefs or interests with a partner is very highly regarded and participants expressed disappointment when the everyday experiences of life could not be shared.

"Holding things in common was seen by participants as a key "connector" in the couple relationship,""

613. Commodification And Objectification Of Women Are A Teleological Fallacy

613.   Commodification And Objectification Of Women Are A Teleological Fallacy
 

Men commodifying, obectifying and abusing women are an example and specific case of the general teleological fallacy.   

As outlined in entry 612, nothing has an independent purpose.   Any purpose is always and only in a person's mind, while an object is produced, used or considered for use.   

Using something merely because of its apparent and alleged purpose sometimes seems superficially as correct behavior and thus justifiable but it is a fallacy.    No properties of any object, which make it appear as if it were perfect for application in a person's pursuit of a purpose, suffice to automatically justify or excuse the use of this object.  There is even less such justification for the use of a human being wrongly mistaken to not differ from an object.  
 

To the contrary, the use is not justified unless there are sufficient legal and moral rights.  Moral obligations require to refrain from harming people and damaging their property without consent in exceptional cases.  

The fallacy of commodifying, objectifying and abusing women is unfortunately enhanced by several factors: 

1.  Religion  
 

According to christian fairy tales, a god has allegedly created the first woman from the first man's rib only as a favor fulfilling his wish.   

This can be translated and generalized easily into the typical male fallacy of believing that 

~in the god's initial plan, men sufficed and women were superfluous.   

~the god consciously created men as beings with the property of recurrent sexual dishomeostasis.  

~a god is perfect by definition and makes not mistake, therefore the recurrent need for homeostasis is something valuable and not a fault in the design.     

~the god created women especially suitable to be used to restore male homeostasis.  He created them for the purpose to supply men with such bodies.  

=>  Therefore these men believe it to be the god's will and plan, that men use women and that all harm to women is justified by being the god's responsibility.   

2.  Natural selection
 

As sad as it is, procreation and the survival of the human species depends on the physical abuse of women's body by the harm, pain and discomfort of pregnancy and birth.     But the property of having wombs and thus being suitable to reproduce does not automatically imply, that women exist for the innate purpose of breeding.    

The more women are willing to self-abuse and the more men are inconsiderate and ruthless to abuse, the more offspring they have thus contributing to the gene-pool.  

3.  Evolution of the telos drive
 

Pararajasingham's suggests (http://www.reasonism.org/main-content/articles-by-other-authors/item/285-the-telos-drive-a-neurobiological-basis-for-religious-belief) the telos drive as an explanation for religious beliefs.    I would rather explain both religion and the teleological fallacy by the biological fact, that breeding is inherently harmful for women and would not be chosen by women, who are fully intellectually and rationally free.     

The telos drive could alternatively be explained as a co-evolutionary coping strategy due to the emerging cognitive dissonance between men's instinctive urges to use haphazard female bodies for homeostasis and the evolving cognition and ability to have empathy, which enable men theoretically to appreciate women's brains along with learning to solve survival problems by reasoning and to use self-control motivated by consideration.
Would they only solve this dissonance by having an isolated belief of women existing for their use and convenience, this would easily be recognized as irrational.   But a more general dysfunction of the brain towards teleological thinking and a telos drive make the belief of women existing for men's purposes consistent with the more ubiquitous fallacy of imputing a purpose to life, to the universe and to the will of some creator.  
  

Promiscuity and the teleological fallacy of believing that women only exist for the purpose of maintaining male sexual homeostasis are two sides of the same coin.   Promiscuity is the logical behavioral expression of this false belief.   
The teleological fallacy of ascribing to women the purpose of being used enables, enhances and reinforces promiscuity.    

Unfortunately it is very difficult for some men to gain insight and awareness, that acting based upon a fallacy of an alleged purpose can be morally wrong due to harming the victims.   The denial of the victims' suffering is a part to the fallacy of ascribing a purpose.    In reality, the fallacy of women's purpose to be used by promiscuous men does not diminish the harm to the women, it only disables men from comprehending, what harm they do. 

610. The Telos Drive And The Fallacy Of Teleology

610.   The Telos Drive And The Fallacy Of Teleology

Teleology is not a part of my rational thinking or of my identity.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology

"A teleology is any philosophical account that holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature."

I have been born, I am living until I die, and I do not exist for any purpose.   My own life has no general meaning or value except for myself and for those persons who choose to appreciate me.   The reasonable way of living without teleological tendencies is to avoid harming and being harmed and to make the best of a lifetime without any nonsensical sacrifices for anything happening after the own death.  
 

Being myself void of teleology, considering it as an innate human tendency did not occur to me until I read about the postulation of the telos drive:

http://www.reasonism.org/main-content/articles-by-other-authors/item/285-the-telos-drive-a-neurobiological-basis-for-religious-belief

"The telos drive is a hypothetical neuropsychological construct that I propose exists as a primitive instinct which, like all biological drives, may be modulated by higher cognitive function or environmental influences, and often forms the core of religious faith."

"This intrinsic drive is a need to find meaning and purpose for which religion (given its immense popularity) is perhaps the most powerful construction."

"I would argue that the telos drive is no different; it has been boosted so we assume everything is suffused with intention or purpose so that we may predict the behaviour of the world around us, thus staying ahead of the game we call survival. This exaggeration or boost causes us to see purpose within (human purpose) and without (cosmic purpose)."

Today I read this:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121017102451.htm

"despite years of scientific training, even professional chemists, geologists, and physicists from major universities ..... cannot escape a deep-seated belief that natural phenomena exist for a purpose."

"Although purpose-based "teleological" explanations are often found in religion, ..... they are generally discredited in science. When physical scientists have time to ruminate about the reasons why natural objects and events occur, they explicitly reject teleological accounts, instead favoring causal, more mechanical explanations. ...... when scientists are required to think under time pressure, an underlying tendency to find purpose in nature is revealed. The results provide the strongest evidence yet that the human mind has a robust default preference for purpose-based explanation that persists from early in development."

""It seems that our minds may be naturally more geared to religion than science.""

So it seems that the telos drive is more ubiquitous than it had appeared to me.   But I doubt that it suffices as a direct explanation of religion.   I think that the telos drive and religion together are mainly enabling procreation.   

Drives and instincts have evolved as advantageous for the survival of the species.    I consider the search for a purpose and the delusion of the existence of deities are interdependently enabling, reinforcing or enhancing one direct advantage for the survival of the human species, which is the submission to and acceptance of suffering harm caused by being determined by the procreation instinct.  
Procreation requires two persons' contribution to a combination of harming and self-harming.  Women are harmed by the biological abuse of their body in pregnancy and birth and by the slavery of raising the brood.   Men are harmed by the obligation to provide at least materially for the offspring.  People are harmed by being deprived of resources, which competing alpha men usurp for their own offspring.   

Self-harming as a sacrifice for procreation needs a justification for accepting the harm.  When there is no rational justification, then imagining and inventing a pseudo-meaning and an alleged purpose can help to avoid cognitive dissonance.    The less people accept harm, the less they are prone to accept any purpose as a justification.  
Deities were invented with the attribute of having the power to reward in the afterlife for the suffering by procreation and to punish in the afterlife for refusing procreation.   They were also attributed to be omniscient and thus competent to demand procreation as a purpose not to be questioned.    

Harming others in spite of empathy, responsibility and consideration and avoiding cognitive dissonance also needs the strong justification of considering the harm as an unavoidable price for fulfilling a purpose.   
Deities were invented to transfer the responsibility for harming to the deity.  Thus the biological harm of procreation could be misinterpreted as if it were a purpose installed by an omniscient and powerful deity. 


The belief in having a purpose and the belief in the existence of a deity are interdependent.   Having a purpose implies to accept being used as a tool or utility and this leads to the question concerning who is doing the using.   A deity or higher power is a simple answer.     
Having the delusion of the existence of a deity leads to the question, why anything had been created by the deity, and what he meant to do with it.   Having a purpose only understood and known by the deity is also a simple answer.   

And simple minds prefer simple answers.   

585. Masculinity And Femininity As Identity Crutches

585.   Masculinity And Femininity As Identity Crutches

Masculinity and femininity are both identities based upon specific dispositions for needs and behaviors determined by virulent instincts.  The stronger the instincts, the more masculinity and femininity are pronounced.   The stronger masculinity and femininity, the more they bring out the worst in men and in women.  

Masculinity and femininity are consciously expressed as favorable attitudes towards specific instincts.

 

Masculinity is based upon a positive attitude towards more or less excessive instinctive urges for sexual homeostation leading to the objectification of women, and towards the hierarchy and ingroup-outgroup instincts, leading to competition, fighting, domination, aggression.   All this often causes extreme suffering for the victims.
 

Femininity is based upon a positive attitude towards the more or less instinctive breeding urge.   This leads not only to their sacrificing their own wellbeing for the priority of breeding, but they burden the disadvantages of breeding also upon other people.    

Masculinity and femininity are complementary identities.    Masculine men abuse women's bodies as objects, feminine women displace their bonding needs to their offspring and do not offer bonding to a partner.   

Masculinity and femininity are the social norm.   

1. When their high instinctivity predisposes people to innately conform with the social norm, they are at ease with themselves and with their social surroundings.   For people with more cognition than instincts, they are a hazard.
   
2. There are also those other men and women, who are either equally instinct driven and controlled by cognition, or their cognition is even stronger than their instinctivity.    In this situation, their confidence makes a big difference.

• Strong, secure and independent thinkers with high self-esteem are not impressed by the pressure from a social norm, which does not fit their needs.   They reject masculinity and femininity in favor of a gender neutral rationality, they are only concerned about their genuine emotions and needs.    They too live in the congruence of their attitudes with their innate inclinations.
  
• But those also lacking confidence, who are insecure and have low self-esteem, are in a especially difficult situation.   They need an identity.  Theoretically they have two options, a cognitive or an instinctive identity, depending what influences their ideal self.
  
  • The more appropriate cognitive identity is hard to obtain, it requires learning, working on oneself, mental and intellectual efforts and resisting social pressure.  
    The false instinctive identity is much easier to obtain.  It just needs to refrain from any self-control or reasoning and to allow existing instincts to rule.  The rest is imitation of all the other instinct driven people and to fulfill the expectations of the social norm.   It is the choice of the least resistance.
    
  • Some people may even not feel any of the instincts, and nevertheless strife to fulfill the social norm, because it supplies them with a fake identity.  They may even relapse at the same time into some apparent cognitive behaviors and appear contradictory and inconsistent.
  
  Whatever the exact dynamics, masculinity and femininity are for these people no real identities, but identity crutches. 

  

583. Paradise And Instinctivity

583.   Paradise And Instinctivity

When I attended a christian kindergarten, I perceived all stories told indiscriminately as fairy tales, no matter if the were Grimm's or from the bible.  

The story of how Eve and Adam lost their paradise was one of those fairy tales.   But rationally seen, their garden Eden was certainly not the perfect paradise.   Had it been, they would have owned it, instead of having a narcissistic landlord, who imposed authoritarian rules upon them and who had the power to kick them out in the case of the lack of compliance and submission.

Putting aside the landlord part of the story, it is mainly an interesting myth of how millennia ago people imagined the ideal circumstances for a happy life.   Filling gaps in my knowledge of the story with a few assumptions, experiencing the garden Eden as a paradise implies Eve and Adam as having been a happy bonded couple having sufficient propinquity.    For a mismatched couple, it could logically not have been a paradise.     

The essence of the happiness of Eve and Adam and their good life while residing in the garden of Eden can be explained by one decisive distinguishing factor:

The definition of a paradise includes the absence of harm caused by instincts and all instincts causing harm.     

The garden Eden supplied Eve and Adam with all resources for survival and freed them from any necessity to depend on others.  There was no danger requiring others for protection.   No competition for scarce resources brought out the worst of male instincts in Adam.

• Procreation instinct
  
  They were childfree, they were not harmed by the consequences of the procreation instinct.   They did not need to produce children for the purpose of being cared for when old.
  
  
• Sexual instinct
  
  They either were free from sexual instincts or their needs were balanced and symmetrical.  There were only the two of them, therefore their sexuality was entirely focused upon each other, without any disturbance or interference from others, not by disruptive comparisons, nor was there any alternative available to monogamy by either cheating, poligamy or ruthless dumping and replacing. 
  The entire garden Eden was their private home.    They were able to be naked without any involuntary triggering of the instincts of or by strangers.   Adam's instincts were not triggered by other women, Eve was not at risk of being objectified by triggering other men's instincts.
  
  
• Hierarchy instinct
  
  There was nobody to compete or even fight with for a higher place in a hierarchy.  Adam was free to be a nice, caring, considerate guy.  He had not reason to be or to learn to be aggressive and dominant, nor had he any reason for risky behaviors.  
  He had no need for the hierarchy instinct.  There were neither other men to deprived of resources or of women.   There were no other women to be taken away from other men.   Adam had no reason to be a jerk for the enhancement of his own reproductive success, both because of the absence of the procreation instinct and of the absence of targets.
  
  
• Ingroup-outgroup instinct
  
  In the absence of any other people, there was neither an ingroup nor an outgroup. Adam was never in a situation desensitizing him become cruel and commit atrocities to outgroup members.  
  
  
• Gregarious instinct
  
  They did not need a gregarious instinct attracting them to indiscriminately interact with other people, even with those being unpleasant or harming due to having nothing in common.  Without the need of exchanging of services, support and for protection, they were free to suffice to each other. 
  They had time to spend together and they were not too exhausted by hard labor for survival.    They were in a situation to have the time work on their relationship, to communicate, to create intellectual and emotional intimacy. 
  They were fully sensitive and perceptive to influence each other's behavior and treatment, because they were not deformed by instinct driven and desensitized persons as disruptive role models.  

It is very interesting to notice, that the myth of Eve and Adam in the garden of Eden clearly but implicitly describes a paradise free from instincts, yet to this very day, the damage caused by instincts is never explicitly recognized.   Whatever harm is caused by instincts is excused as if the instincts were not only the true human nature, but as if there was nothing wrong with being determined by instincts.   

It is overdue to redefine human nature by the primacy of cognition, and to start recognizing instincts as an obsolete nuisance, which needs to be controlled, whenever it causes harm to others.