Why are balding men having children?

[Exodus2011]

I didn't posit how I felt. I retorted with a question. Subjectivity vs objectivity is the difference between a thought relative to some number of people, versus an absolute value. An absolute would be something to the effect of "all things in their composition contain atoms." We presume this to be true, beyond a reasonable doubt, because that is our scientific understanding of matter.

Saying, "life has value", is subjective because we can't know with specificity what value it has in absolute terms. You presented the statement on faith that value of life is universal, but we know that not to be true. Most of the value statements are circular because they have no provable objective statement of value. Statements of "live has value" may also take on faith that it has value because it is said that it does. Saying, for instance, my life has value because other need me fails the test because others do not apparently posses an absolute value either (in other words their existence is just as transient, and no obvious purpose is apparent). Similarly, value relative to some understanding of a god-thing is not provable. Life may in fact be meaningless and have no value, it maybe the most valuable thing, or it may only be as valuable as a person believes it to be to themselves.

It is a ponderous topic, the meaning and, or, the value of life. It is not provable that life has absolute value. If it means something to you, it is proper to say that it has some value to you, but that it may have lesser, or no, value to someone else. I don't begrudge anyone their feelings, one way or another. The OP's feeling, and those a like, are valid simply on the fact they are feeling them. Whether they are trivializing something valuable, I don't know the answer too that. It's an interesting topic though.

So, what makes life important?

i agree with you.

i dont think life has any inherent purpose, i just live it for the hell of it. occam's razor, the simplest possible explanation is always assumed to be true. if we go by occam's razor than we can assume life has no intrinsic meaning, it just is.

we just like to think life has meaning to comfort ourselves, our need to feel important. but it doesnt help explain anything

"purpose/meaning" is a concept that only exists in the human mind anyways, ur right it cant be scientifcally proven and it definitely isnt objective

its an interesting topic but it doesnt lead anywhere, i try not to overthink it

 

[Thom]

I didn't posit how I felt. I retorted with a question. Subjectivity vs objectivity is the difference between a thought relative to some number of people, versus an absolute value. An absolute would be something to the effect of "all things in their composition contain atoms." We presume this to be true, beyond a reasonable doubt, because that is our scientific understanding of matter.

Saying, "life has value", is subjective because we can't know with specificity what value it has in absolute terms. You presented the statement on faith that value of life is universal, but we know that not to be true. Most of the value statements are circular because they have no provable objective statement of value. Statements of "live has value" may also take on faith that it has value because it is said that it does. Saying, for instance, my life has value because other need me fails the test because others do not apparently posses an absolute value either (in other words their existence is just as transient, and no obvious purpose is apparent). Similarly, value relative to some understanding of a god-thing is not provable. Life may in fact be meaningless and have no value, it maybe the most valuable thing, or it may only be as valuable as a person believes it to be to themselves.

It is a ponderous topic, the meaning and, or, the value of life. It is not provable that life has absolute value. If it means something to you, it is proper to say that it has some value to you, but that it may have lesser, or no, value to someone else. I don't begrudge anyone their feelings, one way or another. The OP's feeling, and those a like, are valid simply on the fact they are feeling them. Whether they are trivializing something valuable, I don't know the answer too that. It's an interesting topic though.

So, what makes life important?

I must say, I applaud your thinking skills. I think you do a fantastic job arguing your case. Might I guess that you studied philosophy?

This is not sarcasm by any means.

 

[abcdefg]

philosophy is pointless and stupid what does it really solve or advance? Its just like debating yourself endlessly with questions that will never have answers so why bother asking them?

 

[Thom]

I have to agree somewhat. With no disrespect to the poster, I usually despise the philosophy majors in my class as they all come off as extremely pretentious. They do spin and argue well though. Although I disagree with him, I always appreciate an intelligent response that isn't inflammatory.

 

[Dedge89]

Simply why? Why would you do this to someone? I don't want my boy to look in my eyes after 20 years and tell me "Why dad? Why?" and point to his receding temples.

My parents are regretting giving birth to me (I made them regret) and I would feel **** if someone did the same to me.

Leave having children to those of great genetics (models, actors, etc..). The world is overpopulated already. You don't want to add another suicidal, unhappy and genetically inferior being to this already full world.

Your second line is painful. 'My parents are regretting giving birth to me'. It's really, really, REALLY sad that you have put the burden of this on your parents to the point where they feel personally responsible for your pain, caused by a genetic DICE ROLL.

Infact, this is one of the most outrageous posts I've seen in my FORUM VIEWING HISTORY (since I was like 9?). Let me address why.

1) You ask why? Why are balding men having children? Yet, my father gave me the greatest gift of all, LIFE, regalrdess of whether my frickin' hair is receeding or what not. Infact, let me give you a rundown of the genetic disadvantages I had to face life with;

I had a lazy eye up until I physically learnt to control both my eyes at about the age of 16-17 (when I'm tired I can't do this).
I started balding at 17-18!
I am naturally skinny (though 6ft 1.5 tall) and it took me ages and ages of gym and food to reach a reasonable weight (about 11 and a half stone - when people finally stopped abusing me for being skinny and weak) and even recently I've lost alot of that.

And even then, I am sooooo lucky compared to the myriad of diseases and conditions that others are born with! All those things shape your 'soul', the little innocent being that stepped into this world as a baby, and provide you with the chance to build your strength of character and become a wise and 'strong man'. Yeah, growing up was hard being different to the other kids and worse so in my early teenage years but true character and personality will always shine and I've had the pleasures of experiencing true friendship, true love, true laughter, true joy and true happiness. Yet, you are legitly arguing that all of this should be denied from a being by his parents incase that being is too weak to handle the circumstances possibly given to him?

And yes, weak may sound harsh, but seriously I understand as well as you how painful balding originally is, however honestly it is one of the smaller issues of my life in hindsight and I want you to realise the same. You're being WEAK. Stop it. Now. Literally. Read this sentence, and accept you're being weak, and accept you're life is worth more than viewing yourself as an unlucky sod, and work to make it better. DO IT. Go gym, read, go on a good food diet, raise your body and consciousness in other ways rather than bending it to your balding issue. Please, otherwise you will never find happiness in this dark world if you have already stumbled so hard.

2) I'm not going to say whats wrong with saying you made your parents regret giving birth to you, but I will say apologize to your parents. What they gave you is priceless, the work they put in to love, feed and care for you throughout your whole life has been thrown back into their face in the harshest of ways. Their HUMAN love is more important than their unconscious genes could ever be, if you fail to see this then I fear our society has dampened your 'soul' to a low level, and that hurts me

3) Your last line is completely wrong, and infact a direct consequence of the bull**** Darwinism choked down our throats since early days in school (don't get me wrong, I believe in evolution, but it has provided un-ample reasons for 'life' and driven our hearts down the wrong route - and NO, I'm not 'religious'). What is great genetics is technically subjective (besides obviously no one wishing their child to have serious diseases or conditions), and although society has always attempted to provide an objective set of desired genes (beauty, strength, intelligence) it is important to realise that none of these traits can exist without their counter-part (non-beauty/'ugliness', weakness and lack of intelligence). If you can't appreciate this duality in life, you will find it very hard to find any happiness whenever you feel the dice has rolled against your favour. Every person has a place on this planet, in every possible flavour, and the only thing preventing you from happiness is yourself, not your genetics.

When I used to walk to university I would sometimes see this guy and he had a strange disease, a severe form of dwarfism, where he must of been about 2 foot tall maximum, it literally took him 5 steps to cover one of mine, and everytime I saw him my heart broke into a thousand pieces inside, just imagining the amount of abuse he has probably received, the amount of desire he has to be like others, the amount of sad nights he has had, YET he always looked happy, always carried a smile, always came to university and worked hard and had a great set of friends in the end. This guys soul has risen above his genetic dice roll and found a happiness that yet you seem to make sound so elusive with just the simple issue of balding.

I really hope any of the replies in this thread can get you to see otherwise.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, after reading this mini side debate about eugenics and value of life, my 2 cents:

I agree with Thom. Eugenics can't be justified in my opinion. Infact, one of the better things about Darwinism is that (like unfettered Capitalism) when left to run of it's own accord should filter out the bad and reach it's own balancing state. In practice this doesn't really happen, but a common trend is the increase of intelligence generation to generation, and even more kids these days are finding 'intelligence' in a range of talents that their parents would of never had (thanks to the internet!). Now, for us as humans to suddenly intervene in this process based on a eugenics program would be STATING AN OBJECTIVE VALUE OF LIFE on others based off a SUBJECTIVE OPINION; that is to say, whoever runs this program will state (with 100% confidence) that the value of this person A's life relative to humanity is worth more than person B's life relative to humanity, and this is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!! To imagine, in a universe so beautiful and grand, where every action and form is inexplicitly linked, where every bad gave rise to good and every good gave rise to bad, we as humans want to suddenly decide what is allowed to continue existing in this universe and what isn't?! I'm sorry but to me this is just wrong. If you look at it otherwise, you are looking at it from a robotic, efficient and non-humane way in my opinion, and this is why darkness can so easily enter such a concept.

On another note, like Thom also I believe there is something more to us as humans. Something almost divine, to believe in the midst of the first subatomic particles undergoing emotionless combinations to form the first elements, which formed the first stars, which formed the first carbon, and planets, which then formed atmospheres in which the first simple 'life' arised, until finally you have humans, beings that are self-aware, that have the capacity for emotion and infinite love, that can decode and understand the universe around them. We are something special truely, and it is very easy to forget this miracle and become concerned with the hard, physical matter issues of everyday life.

 

[yadayada029]

I must say, I applaud your thinking skills. I think you do a fantastic job arguing your case. Might I guess that you studied philosophy?

This is not sarcasm by any means.

I’m a student of philosophy always. I studied existentialism in college (philosophy wasn’t my major), and have become fascinated with absurdism, and nihilism. A doctor of psychology, and later a professor in sociology, said I should be a lawyer. I guess that was encouragement?
One of the things I’ve struggled with is conditioning myself to be comfortable with blanks. That is leaving blank that which can’t be answered scientifically. I’m not omniscient, and since the rest of humanity is most likely not all-knowing either, others are no more able to answer questions about existence than I am. It is acceptable to say “I don’t know”, as opposed to relying on faith to fill in the blanks.
Why are we here? I don’t know. Is life important? I don’t know.
To quote Thomas Jefferson

"He proves also that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder is the sport of every wind. With such persons gullability which they call faith takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck." Works Of Thomas Jefferson, 1822

The really interesting topics being discussed on here revolve around existence, social norms, and death. The hostile responses that don’t fit accepted social norms are the most fascinating. The challenge to the social norms, whatever that is, generates reactions from trite ridicule to the vitriolic disdain. Are thoughts really this threatening?
Progressively elaborative questions should be asked to challenge commonly agreed upon conclusions that are not based in logic. This is deliberate imposition on those who assert “knowledge”, and an iconoclastic approach. It isn’t so much to find answers, although that’s certainly nice, but to disinfect, with the harshest sunlight, and expose falsehoods. We are imprisoned by what we think we know.

philosophy is pointless and stupid what does it really solve or advance? Its just like debating yourself endlessly with questions that will never have answers so why bother asking them?

A substantially similar argument could be made about life. What is point in “advancing” life? What will be achieved? To what end? Why is the achievement important, and to what or whom will it matter?