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Beliefofmine

The eternal blue sky
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Why is it that despite having a vast changing history to dwell upon, we often view things today, as how they should be/remain, forever forwards.

Example. We look at the map of the world, and the borders of countries today and get very upset and push back when a country invades another or changes the border. But throughout history there's been border changes almost constantly.

Example. We feel the need to preserve certain animal species, like rhinos and polar bears. But through out history there's been countless species that have come and gone.

Why are we so attached to the here and now? We act like change can't or shouldn't happen.
 

Rook

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Limitations of biological and temporal scope. A fly that lives for a day sees the shitpile as its universe. Change, in whatever form, is the one constant, the one universal law.

Think about borders: yeah they change, yeah folk get used to how things are, yet in a billion years the continents as we know them now will have another form entirely. Are we geared to think billions of years into the future? We mortals that on average live less than a century?

Indeed, I say it is only natural for us to focus on the here and now. And is the saving of endangered animals not a form of change specifically geared towards altering the future? Is change led by human endeavor not indeed something that occurs in the here and now for the purposes of molding a different here and now come tomorrow?

Regarding endangered species, I'd say this: the motive is not to halt change, or to deny that the extinction of organisms occurs naturally, but rather a more emotional, sentimental one(at least in my general experience): a love of nature.
The poacher who hunts the rhino, the ranger who guards it, the activists who protest, the client buying the horn--all are agents of change, albeit in different forms and toward various ends.

There are no answers here, other than it's simply easier to use current data to go through your daily life of nutrient attainment and absorption. Indeed, I've never met the person who stays indoors because it will rain in two days. Getting silly, but a simple example why it is biologically prudent for an organism that is mortal and wishes to propagate its genes within a certain span of time to focus on the present/near future rather than the far past or the infinite branching future possibilities of a universe with billions of billions of galaxies.

No, change is constant, but our perceptions are so very, very limited. Do you feel all the millions of cells dying within you? Splitting, being born? Can you conceive of the orbits of the planets second by second, knowing their positions relative to the sun with your every living breath?

Yes, change is constant and all that we humans can do is to alter it so that it transpires in a way which is more understandable, comforting, pleasing, or practical to us.

So this is where your question comes in: some folk have no qualms thinking about the transience of daily existence, of the fact that every cloud ever is different, each moment a new lotus blooming on the river of time, the river Styx that inexorably bears us aloft to our oblivion as our atoms scatter back into the universe, as our minds embrace the void from which we were born. Some folk don't like to think about this, don't accept the finality of existence, and indeed wish not to be scared by the billion billion billion uncertainties that the universe proffers to its children.
Habits of thought, of body, of society and species, are far easier to maintain for we mammals than a state of unwavering curiosity as to the eternal flux within our universe.

Short answer: Cos it's easier.
 

LOGICZOMBIE

welcome to thought club
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Today 12:00 AM
Joined
Aug 6, 2021
Messages
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Limitations of biological and temporal scope. A fly that lives for a day sees the shitpile as its universe. Change, in whatever form, is the one constant, the one universal law.

Think about borders: yeah they change, yeah folk get used to how things are, yet in a billion years the continents as we know them now will have another form entirely. Are we geared to think billions of years into the future? We mortals that on average live less than a century?

Indeed, I say it is only natural for us to focus on the here and now. And is the saving of endangered animals not a form of change specifically geared towards altering the future? Is change led by human endeavor not indeed something that occurs in the here and now for the purposes of molding a different here and now come tomorrow?

Regarding endangered species, I'd say this: the motive is not to halt change, or to deny that the extinction of organisms occurs naturally, but rather a more emotional, sentimental one(at least in my general experience): a love of nature.
The poacher who hunts the rhino, the ranger who guards it, the activists who protest, the client buying the horn--all are agents of change, albeit in different forms and toward various ends.

There are no answers here, other than it's simply easier to use current data to go through your daily life of nutrient attainment and absorption. Indeed, I've never met the person who stays indoors because it will rain in two days. Getting silly, but a simple example why it is biologically prudent for an organism that is mortal and wishes to propagate its genes within a certain span of time to focus on the present/near future rather than the far past or the infinite branching future possibilities of a universe with billions of billions of galaxies.

No, change is constant, but our perceptions are so very, very limited. Do you feel all the millions of cells dying within you? Splitting, being born? Can you conceive of the orbits of the planets second by second, knowing their positions relative to the sun with your every living breath?

Yes, change is constant and all that we humans can do is to alter it so that it transpires in a way which is more understandable, comforting, pleasing, or practical to us.

So this is where your question comes in: some folk have no qualms thinking about the transience of daily existence, of the fact that every cloud ever is different, each moment a new lotus blooming on the river of time, the river Styx that inexorably bears us aloft to our oblivion as our atoms scatter back into the universe, as our minds embrace the void from which we were born. Some folk don't like to think about this, don't accept the finality of existence, and indeed wish not to be scared by the billion billion billion uncertainties that the universe proffers to its children.
Habits of thought, of body, of society and species, are far easier to maintain for we mammals than a state of unwavering curiosity as to the eternal flux within our universe.

Short answer: Cos it's easier.
Well stated.
 

LOGICZOMBIE

welcome to thought club
Local time
Today 12:00 AM
Joined
Aug 6, 2021
Messages
1,110
-->
Why is it that despite having a vast changing history to dwell upon, we often view things today, as how they should be/remain, forever forwards.

Example. We look at the map of the world, and the borders of countries today and get very upset and push back when a country invades another or changes the border. But throughout history there's been border changes almost constantly.

Example. We feel the need to preserve certain animal species, like rhinos and polar bears. But through out history there's been countless species that have come and gone.

Why are we so attached to the here and now? We act like change can't or shouldn't happen.

It's funny to think that germany and italy did not exist as unified states until nearly 1900.

 
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