Questioning Some Basic Assumptions About Biological Drives

[Howell]

Here's one that's been bothering me for a while now -- hopefully someone here has reasoned this out further than I have, or looked into and questioned the literature and come to different conclusions:

To be direct: pretty much everyone I've ever met have held the common sense (metaphysical) assumption that all humans are programmed with a biological drive to mate. Note the word drive here. It's as though there is something outside of us pushing us around that is beyond our control. We are "driven" to mate. And though our understanding since Freud of drives has certainly matured, it still seems to maintain this fundamental "it's not you" assumption.

This has always unsettled me, but I'd never been able to pin it down more specifically till recently. What I've noticed is as followed:

This attitude makes it sound like it's your duty to procreate, like it's serious and like it invariably has to be hard work, and that you'll be punished (by nature, or god, or what have you) if you don't satiate your drives. That you have no choice in the matter.

Hunger falls in the same category, actually. Do you eat because you don't want to die? You're going to die anyway, you know. I don't know about you, but I don't eat for just fuel -- it also happens to be great fun, and extremely enjoyable. Especially when eating with other people.

When you think about it, the idea of drives is actually quite a grating, put down assumption to anyone who wants to take responsibility for anything beyond their image of themselves as a soul inside a body (i.e., ego) instead of a body inside an ego (energy/god/nature/etc.). And it's also no more based in fact than any other myths of the world.

I did some more research in the topic, and I read some works by some philosophers from the 70s who posit that this attitude is a natural continuation of the Jewish-Christian myth, and that most of the assumptions underlying our everyday common sense are in fact still based on the Jewish-Christian assumptions about the universe.

So, here's my question for you:

Is there really a biological foundation for wanting to impregnate women outside the ego? In other words, how much of our concept of biology is tainted by the social conventions of the 19th century myths/assumptions about, and the image of, the world (like the Newtonian myth and Hegel's concept of life being nothing but "blind energy")?

-Howell

 

[Franco]

Howell,

This article by Chase, although quite lengthy, is worth reading if you haven't seen it already:

• The Purpose of Life From a Practical Point of View

- Franco

 

[Howell]

Howell,

This article by Chase, although quite lengthy, is worth reading if you haven't seen it already:

• The Purpose of Life From a Practical Point of View

- Franco

Yes indeed. This is a fantastic article -- I've referred to it many times. However, it does also illustrate, as you may have noticed, the assumptions I'm questioning quite well -- most notably, the acceptance of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs as more than simply an attempt to describe human motivation, but to take it one step further and view it as a prescriptive tool. This is very useful, as it gets people focused on dealing with some of their more fundamental needs and get them out of a hole, if they're in one. It also probably helps people stop worrying so much about abstractions. It had something of this affect on me.

However, when we take prescriptions from psychological insights (e.g. psychiatry, psychotherapy, etc.), it seems to ironically lead to a narrowing of the spectrum of consciousness that we allow for in our society. This seems to me a quite obvious expression of the West's attempt to standardize (mechanize) man. So it is on these grounds that I question the validity of these deeply ingrained cultural assumptions.

Anyone here possess or have encountered someone (e.g. an intelligent adult) with a non-psychology founded belief structure in regards to how they arrange/understand human desires/needs/motivation? And for those of you who do ascribe to this model of self, can you tell me what you would consider sufficient evidence to disprove it?

Howell

 

[Zoro]

You might want to look into ancient eastern philosophies. The works of Deepak Chopra and Michael Gerber MD. are good starts because they explore the healing techniques of those ideologies and point to numerous studies that support and ground their tenets.

 

[Howell]

You might want to look into ancient eastern philosophies. The works of Deepak Chopra and Michael Gerber MD. are good starts because they explore the healing techniques of those ideologies and point to numerous studies that support and ground their tenets.

Hi J Wick -- yeah, I am very curious about eastern philosophies. Haven't looked much into those guys' interpretations though. Will have to check em out

-Howell

P.S. Earlier I said a body inside an ego, when I meant body inside a soul.

 

[Drck]

Good topic. As usually, there are several points of views to look at it.

The drive that you describe is a desire or urge to have sex. From psych point of view, you as an organism get "rewarded" by pleasurable feelings during sex (also after e.g. eating). You have desire to have sex because sex provides you with pleasurable feelings, there is a reward mechanism in your brain, which is btw also responsible for addiction. So from biological stand point, you simply have sex because it causes you to have intensive pleasurable feelings.

On biological level there is a hormonal influence, in essence it is a desire (or drive) to survive, to exchange DNA with another organism. From this point of view, your mind and your body are two sides of the same thing, they are interconnected and dependent on each other (meaning there is no true separation between mind and body, if body dies, mind dies as well). Male perceives a sexy female through his senses (eyes, smell, touch,..), his mind process the perception trough electrochemical reactions between neurons, hormones are released causing the person desire to have sex, to experience pleasure, to exchange the DNA...

Why is it this way? Who knows, maybe Life is just a coincidence, just a random chemical reactions that resulted what we call today multicellular organisms. Maybe Life was created by God, but the neurochemical reactions are the same. On biological level, Life is perhaps just a bunch of different biochemical reactions, and the urge to have sex that we feel is a byproduct of those reactions reflected and captured somewhere between trillions of neuronal connections that we call brain...

Hunger is little bit different. You also get rewarded by pleasurable feelings after you eat, but you need to eat in order to survive. Your tissues and organs are composed of cells, and cells need fuel (respectively molecules created by breaking down first mechanically by chewing and then chemically by dissolving in stomach chunks of food). You have strong urge to have sex - but unlike with not having a fuel, you can survive without sex.

Thus IMO you don't have any duty to procreate, you simply get rewarded by pleasurable feelings for sex (or jerking off). Don't be mistaken though, this urge to have sex is very strong, when you e.g. look at Animal Kingdom males risk being killed in order to mate with female(s).

Do we eat because we don't want to die? Good question. We eat because we feel hungry. Hunger could be considered as strong negative emotion, dissatisfaction; we feel miserably when we have hunger thus we want to eat. As a matter of fact, this urge to eat is very strong as well, lots of animals including humans kill other species on regular bases to satisfy the hunger.

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As far as eastern philosophies, for example Yoga is considering 'external' energies as you describe. Regular person observes external world (trees, rain, sounds,...) As a yogi you observe external world as well as your own organism, all processes in your organism, sensory perceptions, emotions and thoughts caused by those sensory perceptions. You are the Observer, independent and sort of "separated" from all the processes that normal people call Life.

After some practice, perhaps just couple of years, you can clearly separate your body from the "soul" (or if you want consciousness, awareness). There is a clear distinction between body and "soul". Note that mind is different than "soul' - if you observe your thoughts for some while you can clearly see that thoughts are just there, they just come and go, and that observing them you can calm them down, re-direct them, even stop them. However, you are unable to stop your observation itself, your 'soul' or awareness. If you do, you perhaps reach Nirvana...

By such observation you could easily conclude yourself that there are external forces going through your body. For instance - what makes you breath? Try to hold your breath for one or two minutes, and you will have uncontrollable desire or urge to breath again. From biological point of view, it is simply a desire of cells that are sending out biochemical signals for increase consumption of oxygen, or simply breathing at higher rate. In Yoga however, this force (or urge to breath) is called Prana. You can simply see it as an energy going through your body, and this energy can be manipulated and/or transformed into other sorts of energies (S. Freud actually realized one transformation of energies like that, he called it sublimation, e.g. from sexual desire to something else).

Assume that you are a regular porn watcher who jerks off 7 days a week. You attempt to stop after some while, but you are already addicted. You will have cravings, strong urge to have sex, if you can't do it you will feel miserable. That's your biological drive to continue because you want those pleasurable feelings in stead of misery. The same with alcohol, sugar or any other addiction (depending on intensity)...


Some Prana energy makes you breath, other energy causes you to feel sexual urge, other one cause you hunger, and another one causes you to think. You as an observer only observe these energies and how they influence your body. The observation itself actually causes your mind or soul separate from your body, but it of course takes a couple of years of practice to realize that. Once you get to that level, you can perceive your body as a vessel, just something you "hold on to" as a soul...

Who is right and who is wrong? Who the fuck knows. They all could be right, and they all could be wrong. Or, according to latest findings in quantum physics, they all could be right AND wrong - at the same time...