Which is more Important to you? Ends or Means?

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Discuss.

eh?

Let me elaborate; which is more important to you? The end result or the means of getting there?

this looks like philosophy to me, ( PPR forum) but fun!!

How do you divide things up into ends and means? Which are which?

Ones persons ends are anothers means, and vice versa!!

Last edited by ouinon on 11 Jan 2008, 6:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The means are methods you can use to reach your hopes and aspirations; the ends are the ultimate result of those actions. Would you commit a wrongful in order for a greater result to occur in the long run?

That's already loaded.
You say "hopes and aspirations" are the ends, and that "the results in the long run" are "greater", etc. You're putting ends above means, just by describing them like that. In fact by dividing action up into means and ends you create conflict.

Like going to work to earn money.

Unless the work action in itself makes sense to me i almost literally, physically, grind to a halt. Like that computer in a sci-fi story, , to which someone maliciously feeds the proposition " do not believe what i am saying to you because i always lie". It crashes. Well, that's what happened to me, more and more, and sooner each time, in most jobs.

IF it were possible to divide them up in any sensible way, then i would say they are equally important to me. But the more i think about it the less able i am to think of them as separate things. They are both there in the same moment, the idea of the end, and the action, and holding the idea in your head of "the end" is in fact a means. It is not real, it is part of your means to the end of doing something now.

Last edited by ouinon on 11 Jan 2008, 7:03 pm, edited 11 times in total.

Oh I see... that's something I have thought a bit about also.

I think that the end result is most important. You can use different means and get the same result. And as long as the result becomes the same, the means doesn't matter. It's pure (aspie?) logic. To me, at least.

Anyway it appeared that my (NT) family was of the opposite opinion: the means was more important. (At least it looked like that to me.) Eg. if I didn't do a practical thing the way they thought was more smart, they would tell me, and if I then replied that it didn't matter, the result would be the same, they maybe would be annoyed or say that I was just stubborn or so. I didn't understand that kind of logic. They would say their method was "easier", but it might not always be easier to me.

Does that sound familiar? Or did I misunderstand the topic?

YES! Sounds very familiar. It seems like NTs believe everyone must think like them. Why don't they realize that we can make our own life decisions? It seems like they were the stubborn ones for desperatley trying to modify your behaviors, even the most inconsequential.

Definitely the means. The end is usually anti-climactic at best, the real drama and theater are in getting there...ofcourse, I am rather easily bored...

in fact it occurs to me that that's the only "difference" between means and ends; that means are real, and ends are not, they are ideas in your head to make you go. And once you get to whatever looks like the real version of your idea of an end, it can NOT be the same thing, it is not an end because you are already there. It is a beginning.

The means, absolutely. If you do something unethical in order to do something good, you're doing evil to bring about good. The same goes for doing good for an unethical goal. If you want to do good, you have to act appropriately and conducively to that end. If you let the ends justify the means, and the means were beyond the end, then it's not positive.

Means.

Actually that is correct. The ends are usually a mere set of predictions; a forecast of the future based on previous experiences. Perhaps we should rely on intution more often; it seldom fails if we truly ausculate.

Means.

Though, I've never really understood that one-means to an end-it's very abstract. If I sit and think for a looooong time, I'll get it.

I still come up with means though.

Work for example. There are a few things I want in life; however, the means by which I pursue them are more important to me.

Otherwise....I'd be a 30 dollar hoe and have it all. Instead, I may be a 7 dollar an hour dirt shoveler and have my peace. So, means then. I don't care if it kills me.

Put like that i wonder whether that might be why "apparently" people with AS style brains have such trouble following long term projects, ( executive function disorders), because their records of past experiences are distributed so widely over the brain, compared to the NT type brain, that the prediction is very likely to differ wildly from any real product, and any reasonably conscious AS type apparently knows this too the older they get. So that increasingly rarely sets goals, or if does so has much less faith in them. Is aware of their mirage nature from the start.
Not even sure if NTs are better at the predictions; perhaps they just don't notice when the idea doesn't match the reality? Or their ideas are much less intricate, much simpler. Much closer to the real.
Or maybe they understand that the idea IS just part of the means, nothing more, and do not expect anymore of it. It's just a carrot. The real goal is instinctive and something else completely,( reproduction and survival ?) ! ! .
IS it an NT/AS type/brain style difference? Do NTs play MMORPGs ( all that grinding etc) differently to people with ASDs? For instance.

Last edited by ouinon on 12 Jan 2008, 3:18 am, edited 2 times in total.

I don't care so much about the ends. In most cases ends only last temporarily. Saved up for a new car? What about when it breaks down eventually and becomes useless? Get a new house? What about when IT eventually gets torn down?

We should live by means, not ends. Living by ends is only going to make you a bitter old person once you hit that point.