All for love or fear...?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think we're on two different tracks here. If you have free will, it doesn't exclude making decisions based on most/least. It just means you get to decide what is most/least.

But most/least implies a higher brain function as it relates to purpose and goal. Certain aspects of thought operate like how the primitive reactions of microorganisms do, heuristically where the resulting outcome would tend toward a beneficial outcome, but arriving there through emergence rather than by conscious thought or design. And it would follow that random variation is still at play, even within the human mind. Meaning that certain basic synapses would in fact not be beneficial, as failure and misstep are part of evolution, resulting in decisions that may in fact not be connected to most/least.

Okay, I agree that it's not totally reflexive. Sometimes people make deliberate choices as to what they think are optimal and they turn out not to be.

[Rum]

Food for thought! I drink too much and I am probably dependent on it to relax. I stopped drinking for a year a couple of years ago and felt a whole lot better alot of the time, but also rather bored some of the time! On balance it seems I prefer to not feel quite as healthy but to enjoy whatever it is alcohol does to make me feel good in some other respects. If the balance swung to far in the direction of feeling crap I would quit I think.

We live quite near the local 'strip' where all the bars and pubs are. If I need a lesson in the effects of binge drinking I just have to drive a mile up the road on a Friday and Saturday night. It is really quite scary.

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

If I need a lesson in the effects of binge drinking I just have to drive a mile up the road on a Friday and Saturday night. It is really quite scary.

+1.

Drunk people (strangers mostly) freak me out and annoy me and I don't really like pubs for this very reason. A properly drunk person is capable of attempting anything. Drunk people are the main reason why I don't apply for my taxi driver's permit/licence.
That said, sometimes I do drink myself and occasionally get drunk but I'm nearly always alone and indoors.

[FBM]

The philosopher Ernest Becker has a well-developed argument that, in a nutshell, claims that All Your Bases Are Belong to US fear of death is the primary motivating source of our behavior, conscious or otherwise.

[floppit]

I'm with Dawktor. It is getting to the point where despite the love of the stuff something does have to be said. I'll pop back here when I have more time with some refs. Right now here's the 'chatty' reply.

It seems to me that most if not all people working in medicine are seeing first hand a daily toll that while reported never seems to sink in. There's that well known liver specialist and each time I view him on telly he seems more desperate than the last, just desperate for people not to stick their fingers in their ears and sing 'la la la la nanny state la la la la'. We're learning more about brain and mind each day and while the knowledge is far from complete it includes some deeply worrying details - like how the young feel and look less drunk, EVERY parent should know this because when they can SEE there teen is swaggering drunk they have probably drank even more than appearances would suggest. Secondly, there's further research to suggest that early alcohol consumption may well impact of the developing frontal lobes of teens, the one part of the brain they need to avoid excess.

The dangers of smoking were taught when I was at school, not that everyone stopped, it's no more than a first step but it was enough that none of us left with the illusion it was harmless, it was backed up with experiments and graphic pictures regardless of knowing many parents of the kids smoked - would they ever tackle alcohol that way?

How many people know about vascular dementia and know about the links with drinking? I'm all for informed choice but the information, the sheer amount of it, I don't think is anywhere near getting through. It's going to be hard enough to keep a good health system going with an ageing population but by all accounts alcohol is as much a threat to national healthcare as our growing old will be.

[Trolldor]

Some times I jsut do things because I think they'll be really funny

And that pleases you.

Man, if 'love' and 'fear' can be broken down into liking stuff and disliking stuff, then I think the quote is correct. I however hold the terms 'love' and 'fear' to mean very tangible things and would not delude there meaning so much.

I also sometimes like to be a pompous ass to inflate my own ego.

...The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world ... The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains the passions ... in its relation to the id it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength, while the ego uses borrowed forces [Freud, The Ego and the Id (1923)]

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Three points,


1. Everything in our brains is 'chemical', the idea that you have 'true' or 'false' personas depending on whether you are under the influence of 'naturally occuring' flutuations of chemicals in your brain, or you've deliberately introduced a chemical, is untimately drawing a distiction which isn't really there.

2. I'm fine with people publishing the statistics on the harm alcohol does - but would those people mind publishing the statistic of the number of people who manage to drink alcohol in this country without incurring perminant medical harm, or hurting themselves/others?

3. Frank Skinner is such a bloody boring puritanical old git. Fuck off you Brummy catholic cunt!

[Clinton Huxley]

If I need a lesson in the effects of binge drinking I just have to drive a mile up the road on a Friday and Saturday night. It is really quite scary.

+1.

Drunk people (strangers mostly) freak me out and annoy me and I don't really like pubs for this very reason. A properly drunk person is capable of attempting anything. Drunk people are the main reason why I don't apply for my taxi driver's permit/licence.
That said, sometimes I do drink myself and occasionally get drunk but I'm nearly always alone and indoors.

I sometimes pass through my home town on a friday night and it's horrific. Nothing could induce me to go drinking there. 'd happily while away an afternoon getting pickled at some country pub though.

[Trolldor]

I find the whole act of getting drunk unnecessary. I say if you can't remember the night then what's the point of even going? A little alcohol to make you a little exicteable is fun. When I got (properly) drunk I functioned (gramatically) very much the same. My co-ordination was shot to fuckery, which was almost indistinguishable from how I normally functioned, and if I exercised enough caution I could (apart from the smell) pass off as reasonably sober.
That is properly drunk. When you can't speak nor move you are rather improperly drunk.