In what way do you feel this planet is the wrong planet?

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THE MEANING OF LIFE AND THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS
FROM AN EVOLUTIONARY AND CYBERNETIC PERSPECTIVE
SUMMARY

The purpose of the animate beings is survival/existence therefore the successful individual beings of the species have to be selected. In the case of the most intelligent animate beings, the human beings, the selection is performed partly by the environment and partly by the species when the unconscious minds of the individual beings evaluate the successfulness of each other and themselves. The unconscious minds of the individuals endeavor to increase the probability of survival of the successful individuals and to decrease the probability of survival of the unsuccessful individuals, therefore they give energy (happiness) to successful individuals and take away energy from unsuccessful individuals (depression). Cooperation increases the success of the human individual beings, therefore groups of cooperating successful individuals have to be selected as well. If the evaluations made by the unconscious minds of the successful individuals are positively distorted (positive thinking) and the evaluations made by the unconscious minds of the unsuccessful individuals are negatively distorted (negative thinking) then the energy of the group increases and decreases in proportion of the successful and unsuccessful individuals (heaven and hell).

BEINGS
The essence of the universe (system) is existence. Its laws (algorithms) create the beings and their behavior.

The beings are either animate or inanimate. Animate (intelligent) beings react autonomously to the environment as opposed to inanimate beings which react only to external impacts. Animate beings accumulate energy to be able to react autonomously. Animate beings react dynamically, that is they constantly change and develop their reactions as opposed to inanimate beings whose reactions are static. Animation (intelligence) increases the probability of survival of the being.

The result of an intelligent reaction can be success or failure. An intelligent reaction can be successful uniquely or repetitively (program).

SPECIES AND IMMORTALITY
Species (animate being) are composed of several individual beings (specimens), so that a single inappropriate reaction to the environment does not result in the termination of the animate being (diversification). That is the actual animate being is the species itself and not the individual beings it is composed of. The species, like inanimate beings, is theoretically immortal. The degree of diversification is inversely proportional to the intelligence of the species, that is the more intelligent is the species, the less diversified it is. Theoretically, a perfectly intelligent species would be composed of one immortal being.

The animate being proliferates in order to diversify. In the course of proliferation the being mutates which increases the probability of survival of the individual beings newly generated. The efficiency of mutation increases if the new individuals (descendents) are generated sexually by the recombination of the codes of two successful individuals and not asexually by mutating the codes of one individual.

NEW SPECIES
If successful individuals are not recombined permanently with unsuccessful individuals a new species evolves. However, successful individuals are also able to create different species if they are isolated from each other and therefore cannot be recombined [3].

NATURAL SELECTION
The natural selection of the successful individuals is performed partly by the environment [2] (external selection) and partly by the species itself (internal selection).

In the course of external natural selection those individual beings of the species whose reactions are unsuccessful are terminated by the environment and as a result the successful individuals are selected for survival/existence.

In the course of internal natural selection the individual beings of the species select the successful individuals by subjectively evaluating their successfulness. The species allocates the energy to the internally selected successful individuals. The internal selection increases the efficiency of the selection and as a result the probability of survival of the species.

The probability of survival of the individuals of the species further increases if they cooperate, therefore they form groups. Within the groups the proportion of the successful and unsuccessful individuals varies. If the subjective evaluations of the successful individuals are positively distorted and the subjective evaluations of the unsuccessful individuals are negatively distorted then the energy of the group increases and decreases in proportion of the successful and unsuccessful individuals. As a result, the energy is allocated to the group of individuals which have a higher probability of survival (internal group selection).

AGING AND NATURAL DEATH
In order to terminate the recombined individuals (parents) their energy is decreased internally by the species. As a result, the environmental (external) energy is allocated to the newly generated, more successful individuals (descendents) [5,7], which have a higher probability of survival because they are the parents’ recombined mutations.

COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
The most intelligent beings known to date, the human beings, are composed of body (hardware) and the algorithms that operate the body (software). The brain (hardware) and the thoughts (programs) stored in the brain collect information about the environment and calculate the optimal reaction. The environment positively (success) and negatively (failure) impacts the brain and the thoughts. The information about the environment and the perception of the environmental impact constitute together the consciousness.

Parents transmit their recombined hardware and software code to the descendant. The hardware codes are transmitted via the parents’ genetic codes in the course of reproduction [6]. The software codes are transmitted via the parents’ genetic codes [6] and in addition via the parents’ mental codes in the course of upbringing. The self-evaluations of the parents’ are part of their mental codes.

The mind (brain and thoughts) has a programming and an operating part. The role of the programming (“conscious”) mind is to react uniquely and to create new programs in order to adapt to the changing environment. The operating (“unconscious”) mind uses the genetically transmitted programs (e.g., instincts, emotions), the programs transmitted in the course of upbringing (mental code), the programs created directly by the environmental impact and the programs created by the programming mind.

The operating minds of the individual beings have an individual and a collective part. The individual operating mind maximizes the energy/success (external and internal) of the individual being. The collective operating minds of the individual beings operate collectively and maximize the energy/success of the species by allocating the energy internally to the individual beings and groups of individuals with the highest probability of survival.

By evaluating the subjective success the collective operating minds can increase and decrease the energy level and the probability of survival of the individual beings and the groups of individuals. In addition, the collective operating minds are able to select and recombine the successful individuals more efficiently than the random combination of the externally selected existing, and therefore successful, individuals.

SUCCESS
Success can be objective (external energy) when the environment positively impacts the individual (e.g., adequate temperature, oxygen, nutrition), or the individual reacts successfully to the negative environmental impact (e.g., fight or flight).

Success can be subjective (internal energy) when the collective operating minds evaluate the successfulness of the reactions of the evaluated individual compared to his or her previous reactions and compared to the reactions of the other individuals. The collective operating minds also evaluate if the reactions of the evaluated individual increases or decreases the success of the other individuals. The members of a group of individuals evaluate the successfulness of the reactions of their group compared to the other groups of individuals.

COOPERATION AND COMPETITION
Individuals compete against each other to become successful, but they cooperate (group) as well if cooperation increases their successfulness. Individuals can cooperate to increase their objective and/or subjective success. Subjective success can compensate for the decrease of objective success and cooperation increases the objective success. The individual maximizes the sum of objective and subjective success and as subjective success increases both types of success the subjective success increases the cooperation of the individuals. Individuals endeavor to cooperate with successful individuals to increase the probability of their objective success. Successful individuals also increase the probability of the subjective success of the individual because their evaluations are positively distorted.

SELF-ESTEEM
The subjective success determines the self-evaluation (self-esteem) of the individual. Subjectively successful individuals have high self-evaluation subjectively unsuccessful individuals have low self-evaluation.

The collective operating mind of the subjectively unsuccessful individual modifies the behavior of the individual, his or her thinking becomes negatively distorted, that is, he or she focuses on factors which decrease the probability of success. Individuals with high self-evaluation think positively.

As a result, unsuccessful individuals with low self-evaluation distort negatively other individuals’ self-evaluation by focusing on their failures, whereas successful individuals with high self-evaluation distort positively other individuals’ self-evaluation. The individual distorts also his or her own self-evaluation when evaluating his or her own success or when perceiving other individuals’ evaluations.

Because of the positively and negatively distorted evaluations of the individuals, the individual members of the group increase and decrease each other’s self-evaluation in proportion of the successful and unsuccessful individuals.

FAMILY AND UPBRINGING
The development of the self-evaluation is influenced in the highest degree by the parents of the descendent [8]. Parents with low self-evaluation focus on the negative, unsuccessful traits of the descendent (hate), whereas parents with high self-evaluation focus on the positive traits (love). If the descendant receives mostly positive feedbacks than high self-evaluation (confidence/faith) is created. On the other hand if it receives mostly negative feedbacks than low self-evaluation (shame/guilt) is created. That is parents transmit their self-evaluations (psyche/soul) to the descendent.

HAPPINESS AND DEPRESSION
The collective operating minds of the individuals give energy (happiness) to the individuals with high self-evaluation and take away energy (sadness/depression) from the individuals with low self-evaluation. In the case of extreme unsuccessfulness, the collective operating mind of the individual can cause illnesses [1,4] or can terminate directly the existence of the individual being (suicide).

A typical manifestation of the energy allocating function of the collective operating mind is humor, which is a sudden energy impulse received by the individual when he or she instantly become aware of the unsuccessfulness of another individual.

Because of the positively (good) and negatively (evil) distorted evaluations (judgements) of the individuals, the energy of the group of individuals increases and decreases in proportion of the successful and unsuccessful individuals (heaven and hell).

MATING
Individuals with high energy level, high self-evaluation, successful hardware and software code become sexually attractive for the collective operating minds’ of the other individuals whereas unsuccessful individuals become sexually unattractive, that is the collective operating minds select and recombine the successful individuals.

DOMINANCE AND SUBORDINATION

The collective operating mind creates a hierarchy among the individuals based on the degree of successfulness by modifying the behavior. Individuals with lower degree of successfulness (subordination) surrender control to individuals with higher degree of successfulness (dominance) which increases the probability of survival of both the group and the more successful individuals.

BODY AND BEHAVIOR
The collective operating minds of the individuals store the successful and unsuccessful hardware (e.g., body shape, muscularity, etc.) and software (e.g., positive/negative thinking, confidence/shame, happiness/sadness, dominance/subordination, etc.) codes which codes originate from the traits of the successful and unsuccessful individuals.

The collective operating minds of the evaluating individuals use the successful and unsuccessful codes to forecast the probability of future success or failure of the evaluated individual. That is when the other individuals evaluate the success of the evaluated individual not only the actual, but also the probable success and failure is taken into account.

In addition, the collective operating minds of the evaluated individuals use the successful and unsuccessful software codes to improve (high self-evaluation) or deteriorate (low self-evaluation) the behavior of the evaluated individual in order to increase or decrease his or her probability of survival.

Because of the positively and negatively distorted evaluations of the individuals, the behavior of the groups of individuals improves and deteriorates in proportion of the successful and unsuccessful individuals.

VIRTUOUS AND VICIOUS CIRCLE AND THE PSYCHE (SOUL)
The collective operating minds of the evaluating other individuals meta-communicate the result of their evaluation to the collective operating mind of the evaluated individual. The self-evaluation of the evaluated individual is also meta-communicated to the collective operating minds of the evaluating other individuals.

When the other individuals evaluate the subjective success of the individual the self-evaluation is also taken into account and it has a major influence on the evaluated degree of successfulness. That is the evaluation influences the self-evaluation and the self-evaluation influences the evaluation in a self-reinforcing manner.

In addition, behavior is influenced by self-evaluation and the evaluation of behavior influences self-evaluation also in a self-reinforcing manner.

The self-evaluation or self-esteem can be considered as the psyche (soul) of the individual being as it is the main factor which influences the behavior of the individual.

I am not saying you should love people without regard to what they do or who they are. It is really not what I am pointing at.

The problem with the love in this world is that too much so-called "love" is very conditional. People think about their own needs (as they are supposed to in this world) and if they no longer have a need to be together with a person they once "loved", they will just break off that relationship.

It's the whole superficial ME ME ME culture that is wrong with this world. I know that that is the only way it can be because of the way the world is put together.

But that is exactly what I think is wrong about this world. It should be put together in a completely different way. It should not be based on competition and survival, but on true love and good intentions.

In the end, in this world we only love others because it benefits ourselves.

All these philanthropists donating money to charity are only doing it to show the world how great people they are.

I wish we were all more like bonobos. If everyone was bisexual, things would be simplified a great deal, and it'd be pretty neat if fighting was largely replaced by lovemaking.

Unconditional means no conditions on the love at all, including the person's actions and personality. It seems like "unconditional" is not the correct word for the idea you have. Maybe "unselfish."

The entire world is not individualist. Only some societies are.

The need for survival is an intrinsic, fundamental part of nature itself. The only way that life (for humans) could not be based on survival is if humans were not living things, because only non-living things have no worries about survival. But if we're not living things, it doesn't really matter what the world is like at all.

Selfishness is a survival tactic that benefits everyone in the large scheme of things. Love binds us to our families, which pushes us to take care of them and ensure their survival. Love binds men and women, pushing them to procreate and continue the species. Our conscious reasons for love may be or seem selfish, but in fact we are (barring severe psychological dysfunction) driven by subconscious needs that are beneficial to humanity as a whole. If this didn't work out to be broadly beneficial, humans would not survive. It's only when people become attached to unnatural, unbeneficial goals that their selfishness becomes a problem, but this is a problem of so-called civilization, not the whole world, but a huge chunk of it. The so-called primitive people are still doing rather well because what each individual wants (and thus acts on selfishly) is closely tied to what is beneficial to the tribe. But maybe that is outside what you are discussing; I'm not even sure that what we would call love can be said to exist among them.

I don't know why you would assume that. Some are showy and loud about their philanthropy, sure, but others are not.

I wish we were all more like bonobos. If everyone was bisexual, things would be simplified a great deal, and it'd be pretty neat if fighting was largely replaced by lovemaking.

While I'm not entirely sure about forcing everyone into it as opposed to choice (You were somewhat vague on that subject) it would certainly solve the population crisis a great deal ;P

It wouldn't be forcing them, lol. It's just how I wish humans were. I think it's pointless to set arbitrary limits for yourself based on gender, at least when it comes to love.

Of course, I only feel this way because I am this way (barring my unfortunate social prejudices), so that's a factor.

What societies are you having in mind? Ultimately, people have to think individualistic to not be mentally ill.

I agree. The problem is that in the end nature is nothing but survival - very superficial. Life should have a completely different basis.

I don't see how that is a similar argument. Bullying in schools doesn't "sort out" anyone. The kids don't usually die from the bullying. No one benefits from bullying, except maybe if you consider the shallow, temporary feelings the bullies get from it. The bullied children are hurt, their parents are worried, the job of the school administration becomes more difficult.

But the point I was making is this: If survival is not the basis of life, then what you have is not life. It's like wishing that water wasn't wet, or that the sky wasn't so high; if you got your wish, the change would be so fundamental that you would no longer have what you started with.

Well, then should the topic of the thread be the purpose of living, as opposed to life?

"I wish we didn't have to eat or drink, didn't breath or procreate, and we all looked, acted, and thought like Batman...,"

None in particular, but, for example, the U.S. is an individualistic society. If I understand correctly, China is not.




But the point I was making is this: If survival is not the basis of life, then what you have is not life. It's like wishing that water wasn't wet, or that the sky wasn't so high; if you got your wish, the change would be so fundamental that you would no longer have what you started with.