Life experiences change your epigenome. A mouse for instance who is coddled as opposed to his cloned brother with an indifferent mom: starts off with picture perfect matching genomes that then diverge when the only change in state is experience. The mouse with an indifferent mom for instance is predisposed to heart disease risks and anxiety. Just to name a couple.
So if experiences change who we are genetically, then it is logical for me to reason that any affect I have on others of my species can affect the positive (or negative) progression of our species. Perhaps the experience of having someone die for you widens the potential of future generations.

(June 23, 2013 at 2:20 pm)missluckie26 Wrote: Life experiences change your epigenome. A mouse for instance who is coddled as opposed to his cloned brother with an indifferent mom: starts off with picture perfect matching genomes that then diverge when the only change in state is experience. The mouse with an indifferent mom for instance is predisposed to heart disease risks and anxiety. Just to name a couple.
So if experiences change who we are genetically, then it is logical for me to reason that any affect I have on others of my species can affect the positive (or negative) progression of our species. Perhaps the experience of having someone die for you widens the potential of future generations.

I agree that that is valid. But I'm not ready to say much about epigenetics, haven't read too much on it. Let's grant that what you proposed is possible, dying for another may not necessarily give your species better future.

Because the person you die for may have only 10 years ahead of him, or he may not be able to contribute to society the way you can, he may not have people depending on him like you do. Btw I'm using criteria that we as a society use everyday to determine who gets organs and who has to wait. Not saying it's the best possible scenario, but i do think if you're arguing in terms of net benefit to society, the fact that not everyone contributes equally to society has to be addressed.

So to really increase the survival of your species, you must die for more than one person. Otherwise you just break even, or decrease the benefits to your society, or increase the benefits to your society. It's up to chance.

Potential cannot be measured unless you are omniscient. Prior acts mean nothing when future acts can be anything; one person can change the entire world, you mention Abraham Lincoln. If as a young tree chopper you decided not to save him from a threat of death because you measured your worth higher than his: and you do nothing with your life, imagine what the world had just lost. I suggest merely that our default position for the betterment of our species and that of society, should be to give the other the fighting chance because the repurcussions of not doing that are far greater. The moral implications of having a future society that measures peoples worth and engages in self preservation tactics, will lead to a possible end to our entire species. We are all pieces of a whole, and if we don't connect then eventually that whole will crumble.

(June 23, 2013 at 3:00 pm)missluckie26 Wrote: Potential cannot be measured unless you are omniscient. Prior acts mean nothing when future acts can be anything; one person can change the entire world, you mention Abraham Lincoln. If as a young tree chopper you decided not to save him from a threat of death because you measured your worth higher than his: and you do nothing with your life, imagine what the world had just lost. I suggest merely that our default position for the betterment of our species and that of society, should be to give the other the fighting chance because the repurcussions of not doing that are far greater. The moral implications of having a future society that measures peoples worth and engages in self preservation tactics, will lead to a possible end to our entire species. We are all pieces of a whole, and if we don't connect then eventually that whole will crumble.

Potential can and are measured everyday, potential is not a guarantee, if you're omniscient you get to look into the future, potential is only a concept because we are not omniscient. We decide who gets scholarships. Who gets bank loans. Who gets organs to live on. We do it everyday. We cannot function well if we don't, imagine a society where getting scholarship is a lucky draw. You get smart and hardworking people entering the workforce early because they cannot afford school. You get people who slack through school going to university. You cannot honestly think that they have equal potential. Which I think is what you're proposing here, that everybody has equal amount of potential but have manifested different amounts of it.

Prior acts DO limit future acts. For example I cannot be a ballet dancer. I did not train when I was young enough. Or acrobatics. Or an athlete. There are limits to what humans can do, and often this is limited by past actions. If I am a convict and do not have the papers I need, I cannot get work as easily as you can. Are you more likely to agree to dinner with a known rapist or are you more likely to have dinner with your sister (or insert a relative you like here)? You measured what they'll potentially do, and you chose self preservation.

Maybe I was unclear, I do not advocate not helping the weak, the poor, the physically disadvantaged, and so on. I merely think, to require someone to die, it has to be for quite a lot, enough that you value it more than your life. And if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying any life will be worth yours.

Let's say in a scenario A is in trouble and if B dies A gets to live. You say that if B doesn't, A doesn't have a fighting chance. But what about B's fighting chance? Why doesn't A die so that B doesn't have to? Only one person comes up alive here, who is taking away whose fighting chance?

Ugh. My whole reply got dematerialized. I'm going to take a break and try again

(June 23, 2013 at 2:00 pm)missluckie26 Wrote: We all find ourselves helpless at one point or another in our lifetimes. Fact of the matter is, you don't know how you'll react till you find yourself in that predicament. If there's one thing I've learned, its that when you are in that position--the position of facing the last few moments of your life--your instincts for survival kick in. You'll be begging, and you'll be pleading for help. Every inch of you including that reasonable brain of yours will want one and one thing only. Survival. The difference between you and I is that when faced with myself I would be saved and if faced with yourself, you would die with a feeling of injustice.

I have been in that situation, and I've never been calmer. I don't fear death; when it comes, it comes, and I will accept that. But I will do what is in my own power—without relying on others or expecting them to risk their own life to save mine, which has no value to them if they are rational—to preserve my life as long as possible. I don't wish to die before I have a chance to live to the extent I'd like, but if I do, I do.

I recommend you not assume so much about people you don't know.

(June 23, 2013 at 3:00 pm)missluckie26 Wrote: Potential cannot be measured unless you are omniscient. Prior acts mean nothing when future acts can be anything; one person can change the entire world, you mention Abraham Lincoln. If as a young tree chopper you decided not to save him from a threat of death because you measured your worth higher than his: and you do nothing with your life, imagine what the world had just lost. I suggest merely that our default position for the betterment of our species and that of society, should be to give the other the fighting chance because the repurcussions of not doing that are far greater. The moral implications of having a future society that measures peoples worth and engages in self preservation tactics, will lead to a possible end to our entire species. We are all pieces of a whole, and if we don't connect then eventually that whole will crumble.

The whole always crumbles. Everything that is, crumbles, without exception. "Our species" means nothing, really. 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. Our species, too, will eventually go extinct. Every one of us will die until, one day, there are no more. I don't care much for what happens once I'm dead. It's not as if I'll exist to have an opinion on the matter. I'll be dead.

(June 24, 2013 at 5:44 am)Gods_Unreal Wrote:

(June 23, 2013 at 3:00 pm)missluckie26 Wrote: Potential cannot be measured unless you are omniscient. Prior acts mean nothing when future acts can be anything; one person can change the entire world, you mention Abraham Lincoln. If as a young tree chopper you decided not to save him from a threat of death because you measured your worth higher than his: and you do nothing with your life, imagine what the world had just lost. I suggest merely that our default position for the betterment of our species and that of society, should be to give the other the fighting chance because the repurcussions of not doing that are far greater. The moral implications of having a future society that measures peoples worth and engages in self preservation tactics, will lead to a possible end to our entire species. We are all pieces of a whole, and if we don't connect then eventually that whole will crumble.

The whole always crumbles. Everything that is, crumbles, without exception. "Our species" means nothing, really. 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. Our species, too, will eventually go extinct. Every one of us will die until, one day, there are no more. I don't care much for what happens once I'm dead. It's not as if I'll exist to have an opinion on the matter. I'll be dead.

Of course most species are now extinct. That's because they failed.

It's true that there will eventually be no organisms that we'd recognize as human. But it's not necessarily because we die out. We may simply survive long enough, and encounter enough new environments, that we evolve out of it.

(June 24, 2013 at 7:49 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(June 24, 2013 at 5:44 am)Gods_Unreal Wrote: The whole always crumbles. Everything that is, crumbles, without exception. "Our species" means nothing, really. 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. Our species, too, will eventually go extinct. Every one of us will die until, one day, there are no more. I don't care much for what happens once I'm dead. It's not as if I'll exist to have an opinion on the matter. I'll be dead.

Of course most species are now extinct. That's because they failed.

It's true that there will eventually be no organisms that we'd recognize as human. But it's not necessarily because we die out. We may simply survive long enough, and encounter enough new environments, that we evolve out of it.

You don't seem to understand very much about evolution. There will come a day, however you define that day, when there won't be a single homo sapiens left on this earth. "Evolving out of it" is still "dying out," in the view of homo sapiens, which won't exist anymore. It won't be "us." Forms will have mutated sufficiently for their classification to fall outside of "homo sapiens," and those remaining who are will eventually die. Maybe not the first time, maybe not the second, but, eventually, natural selection will favor the new forms over us. Those new forms will be a new species, and it will have its own concerns. I don't much care about what those are.

(June 24, 2013 at 8:11 pm)Gods_Unreal Wrote:

(June 24, 2013 at 7:49 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Of course most species are now extinct. That's because they failed.

It's true that there will eventually be no organisms that we'd recognize as human. But it's not necessarily because we die out. We may simply survive long enough, and encounter enough new environments, that we evolve out of it.

You don't seem to understand very much about evolution. There will come a day, however you define that day, when there won't be a single homo sapiens left on this earth. "Evolving out of it" is still "dying out," in the view of homo sapiens, which won't exist anymore. It won't be "us." Forms will have mutated sufficiently for their classification to fall outside of "homo sapiens," and those remaining who are will eventually die. Maybe not the first time, maybe not the second, but, eventually, natural selection will favor the new forms over us. Those new forms will be a new species, and it will have its own concerns. I don't much care about what those are.

Uhmm. Disagree. there is no real "homo sapien" it's just a name we give to ourselves cos humans like to name things (especially scientists, just take a look at all the proteins). There is no point in time where homo sapiens came into being, it's a continuous change. Gradual and slow change but continuous. We name things not to reflect reality but for organizational purposes, in this particular case. (Species has a functional purpose because separating populations that way does help us understand them better, but in evolutionary terms ... species across timescale, eg. if you go back far enough, you'll be biologically unable to breed with your own ancestor, I don't see the point of having this separation, because it has no practical purposes and doesn't help us understand evolution any better, which is not discontinuous.) Other than that if we don't go extinct, we'll be the ancestors of whatever occupies the face of the earth, just like forever ago a single celled organism was our ancestor. Whether it's "us" or "something else" is something for people to play with depending on their definitions, but it's not something that any evidence will speak to, it'll depend completely on what one defines to be a homo sapien.

I don't think evolving into something else is extinction. Extinction requires that a population completely dies out. Evolving is a state of being for every population. As long as a population is evolving it is not extinct. And every population is evolving.