What can change the nature of a man?

[rANd0mtHIEf]

Thoughts, anyone?

[jpnuar1]

No, I try to avoid thinking when I can. Gives me a headache.

[MusicallyInspired]

Then.....why do you play adventure games?  :\

[Vildern]

...in order to look awesome and intelligent  :hat

[Blackthorne519]

Death.  

That's about it.  Otherwise, man's nature is always intact.


Bt

[gamecreator]

Thoughts, anyone?

Googleis your friend.
Wiki is your friend.

Other than that, if you want to start a discussion, start talking.  :)

[rANd0mtHIEf]

I'm not talking about human nature, but the nature of a man... your nature.
I've thought about this for a while and asked around a bit, and I keep coming back to Blackthorne's solution, if even that (Who knows what death brings?)
Most people have an immediate answer, experience, love, will power... I generally find these to be lacking, and was wondering if you guys had any better ones.
Doesn't it worry you that you are immutable, you are stuck with you exactly as you are now? The one thing that determines all things in your life is beyond your control. Isn't it?

[Blackthorne519]

Doesn't it worry you that you are immutable, you are stuck with you exactly as you are now? The one thing that determines all things in your life is beyond your control. Isn't it?

Change happens when you aren't looking.  If you constantly think "I must change' nothing will happen.

Bt

[Vroomfondel]

Yes, because I am a control freak, and I hate the fact that things never seem to change. I know I'm better off than billions of other people, but sometimes I just want to change the way things are, and I can't. Blegh,  :x

[Jontas]

There are two paths you should take to try understand this, Anthropological and Philosophical. I think it comes down to personal experience; it seems that the moments of greatest internal change in my life have come through some major crisis. Crisis determines when many people move from immaturity to maturity (even puberty is a kind of crisis), crisis determines your understanding of the world around you and who you want to be in that world.

 There are intervening moments in your live that cause you to stop and reflect on who you are and who you want to be. Every situation in life presents us with different tools to shape who we are inside and out. If you want to change who you are, spend six months in Africa, I guarantee you won't come back the same person. It's not that hard to change, death is by no means the only option. At least that's how I see it.

[gamecreator]

Exercise
Diet
Therapy
Surgery
Will
Action
Pretense

Which of those doesn't change who you are?  (Hint: answer is neither.)

In short, by deciding to do something you become someone else.  I'm not saying you'll be emperor of the world if you wipe your ass at the right time.  But unless you were talking strictly about grand changes then yes, by choosing and acting, you can change yourself.

[Blackthorne519]

Killing someone can change you.

I had a friend who was a cop.  Got into it, wanted to preserve "law and order" and "protect the innocent".

Shot a young gangbanger during a routine traffic stop.  17 year old kid flashed a Glock and threatened to shoot.  They ended up taking him down.

Sometimes "protecting" people means giving up everything you have that's human about yourself.  The process isn't as heroic or noble as one might think.  At least, that's how he felt.  He works in a manufacturing plant now, and is doing much better.  But he was never the same after he shot that kid.


Bt

[gamecreator]

Then again, the gangbanger probably wouldn't have changed much had he killed some cops.  By the time you get to where someone like he is, you're already pretty damn f*cked up.

[MusicallyInspired]

Then wouldn't that be a change of nature? A gradual change, yes, but a change nonetheless.

Interesting convo...I wonder if a neat adventure game could be cooked up from this one thought? Maybe not in itself, but in the character development in the story as a focus.

[Vildern]

Interesting convo

Sorry, I'm gonna rant a bit  :p

If you want this conversation to bear any worthwhile philosophical fruits (or at the very least be interesting), start with defining "nature" (or "nature of man"), "change" and any other term you are determined to use.


Otherwise it's just... like... pointless.


edit: by defining I mean not giving a dictionary meaning, but defining what "change" (for example), is for you here (it's like making up a new word, with clear boundries, as you use it as a term now in the conversation, and terms must be well defined, just like in math). It's the basics of any modern philosophical discussion (or Wittgenstein discussion, if you like. Even Kant discussion would work here). You can sum up a good definition like this: "a change is x", when is x is the exact definition.

Done ranting.  :p

And to coin a phrase, just for the hack of it: The more things change, the more they remain the same.

[Kurdt]

The one thing that determines all things in your life is beyond your control. Isn't it?

Not particularly. You always have the ability to choose how you react to things, even when you're a newborn baby. How you choose and what you choose to like and dislike initially eventually sets you in your ways. Practice makes permanent. If you choose to get violent in a certain situation more than once, you can bet you'll begin to get violent in that situation all the time. This doesn't mean you can't control getting violent or that you didn't choose to. You clearly did all those other times you got violent and now your brain's just using shorthand because that's what it knows, that's what you've told it to do.

Yeah, willpower has a great deal of influence on what we do and don't do. It's easy to say "I can't change" or "I can't do this." It's a lot harder to say "I CAN do this" or "I WILL do this" and even harder to push yourself to do so. When someone once asked Thomas Edison if he ever felt dejected or depressed at the 1,000 times he failed before finally creating a working light bulb, he said, "I didn't fail. I just found 1,000 ways not to make a light bulb." It's not optimism in the face of adversity or anything so corny as that, it's just a refusal to have something defeat you if you don't want it to.

That being said, what can change the nature of a man? CAN the nature of a man be changed? Well, alcoholics and drug addicts kick habits all the time and build productive lives afterward. Their natures are certainly changed when they've turned their lives around.

I like what Jontas said. Crisis can motivate you to explore a part of life you previously had not explored or experienced or even knew existed. Bigger changes like graduating from school or quitting a job you've been at for a long time can spur you into some change.

However, people don't very much change the big things about who they are. We're set in our ways. If we get violent about something for years, we'll probably continue to get violent about it when we're 60 years old. When we're 80 and no longer have the capacity for violence, we'll internally explode and wish we could get violent. Profound experiences like living in Africa for a year or a loved one dying or the birth of a child can change the way you view the world, but in the end you're still the same person with a different point of view. You probably still have the same moral/ethical code, still have the same values, still have the same likes/dislikes/desires. If you're speaking change on a fundamental level of nature, it would have to take a great deal of will over an extended period of time and it will probably be one of the hardest things you will ever do.

As for having to define "change" and "nature," I don't quite agree. I think many philosophers get lost in the definitions, trying to mete out the devils in the details and answer every argument before it's posed that they end up forgetting what it is they're speaking of. Such definitions are for when the complete argument is formed and you go back to gain a deeper understanding of what it is you're arguing. For now, we can pursue the answer which will lead us to an understanding of the question.

[Vildern]

I think many philosophers get lost in the definitions, trying to mete out the devils in the details and answer every argument before it's posed that they end up forgetting what it is they're speaking of. Such definitions are for when the complete argument is formed and you go back to gain a deeper understanding of what it is you're arguing. For now, we can pursue the answer which will lead us to an understanding of the question.

History proves quite the contrary. The greatest philosophers of modern times were renown for their consistent, well-defined writings. In modern philosophy (or Wittgenstein philosophy) you look back on previous texts in a different view, as they had many errors for not being well-defined.  

You must understand that there are two categories: That which is certain and that which is the truth. Mathematics deals with that which is certain (other than practicable mathematics - which uses a different method entirely), while philosophy deals with the truth by methods that are certain - and the only (actually there are two, but only one is applicable. The other method is deduction) way to do that is by definitions.

You never get lost in definitions, on the contrary - its saves you from so much headaches and common errors that previous philosophers kept on doing because they were using faulty methods.

All serious modern philosophers are Wittgenstein philosophers, and all Wittgenstein philosophers will never ever use a term without well defining it. Hence, any *philosophical* discussion that uses terms that are not well defined (this can be achieved in numerous ways, nobody asks you to just spit it out loud), is not a philosophical discussion at all, but rather empty talks that achieve deceiving results.

It's alright to get your definitions in the middle or even in the end, but ultimately - everything must be well-defined. And consistent, naturally.

The perfect philosophical discussion will strive to look like a set (or system? not sure how you call it in English) of mathematical equations (only several discussions have ever achieved that, unfortunately), although it will never be quite that, only strive to be so (as words are only titles for symbols in our minds that are defined by being related to other symbols... not quite the symbols themselves like in math, etc).

Edit: of course, you can conduct the discussion in any way you see fit, just don't later call it "philosophical" or anything Anyway, it's 06:24 AM and I need to wake up in 2-3 hours.... so I'd better cease now.

[seraphimdreamer777]

I've been though a lot in my short 22 almost 23 years of life. More than most people my age could say. I've lost and gained many things and people in my life and I've probably been almost half of the religions out there but one thing is for certian is that my mind and the fabric of what people have thought of me the friends I've made and the friends I've lost. I find that at times I've been depressed at times I've been happy some of my choices religion wise have changed my additude and how people look at me so I guess its just random choices in which can change the nature of man. If not then I don't know what can.

[Kurdt]

There are also a very great deal of people who are diametrically opposed to everything Wittgenstein ever said. For example, the Existentialists are the #1 enemies of analytical philosophy. Therefore, to say that any serious philosopher uses the teachings of Wittgenstein and the analytical philosophers as the base for every philosophical argument is also quite wrong. As many people who have looked at ancient philosophy through the lens of analytical philosophy and found it lacking, there are those standing on the opposite end who attack the analytical philosophers for their bias and narrow-minded view of the world.

Like I said, though, there's nothing wrong with defining what you're saying. However, getting into a discussion about the definition of change and nature is at this point merely chasing one's own tail. We're never going to answer the question if all we do is define the question. Saying that we're not allowed to have a philisophical argument without arguing semantics first is kind of closed-box thinking, if you want my honest opinion.

[Blackthorne519]

CannibalHolocaust.

Check it out.


Bt

P.S.  Cannibal and Holocaust both provide different links.  The second link is the official website with photos which may be disturbing.  Discretion is advised.

[Vildern]

There are also a very great deal of people who are diametrically opposed to everything Wittgenstein ever said. For example, the Existentialists are the #1 enemies of analytical philosophy. Therefore, to say that any serious philosopher uses the teachings of Wittgenstein and the analytical philosophers as the base for every philosophical argument is also quite wrong. As many people who have looked at ancient philosophy through the lens of analytical philosophy and found it lacking, there are those standing on the opposite end who attack the analytical philosophers for their bias and narrow-minded view of the world.

Like I said, though, there's nothing wrong with defining what you're saying. However, getting into a discussion about the definition of change and nature is at this point merely chasing one's own tail. We're never going to answer the question if all we do is define the question. Saying that we're not allowed to have a philisophical argument without arguing semantics first is kind of closed-box thinking, if you want my honest opinion.

From what I understood from your paragraphs above, you have a bit of confusion going on.


Existensialism is a certain field in philosophy that is unique, unlike others, in the way that it's very subjective. However, no serious existentialist -- let's say, since the 50's of the previous century--or any other serious philosopher for that matter, will never ever use a term that eventually will not be well defined.

Wittgenstein is criticized, like any other philosopher - for he had some blunders too (mainly in his Tractatus), but he's not criticized for his *exactness* (the best word that pops to mind now). This is something that all modern serious philosophers embrace.

Talking about something that has no definition is not considered philosophy today. Not by existentialists, not by anyone.

Edit: And in spite of it all, you cannot call Wittgenstein's work lacking or narrow minded, you couldn't be more wrong. In spite of his blunders, he was able to simplify a great deal of philosophical topics that were very vague and unclear before him, without even mentioning the new questions that he raised, the new fields that he began exploring (that were totally new). He's considered the second or third most prolific and groundbreaking philosophers ever (the second is prolly Kant, and the first one is either Aristotle or Socrates... I remember very little of Ancient Greek philosophers, unfortunately.)

Edit: btw, Kurt, I was not aware of the term Analytic Philosophy before (probably because we name it differently in Hebrew), however after you named it, I decided to read what they have to say about it in Wikipedia, you might find this interesting. Enoy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_philosophy

They say that Analytic Philosophy is not widely practiced in Germany and Austria, which is funny, as many of its founders came from there  :p

So, on that page, they distinguish between it and Continental philosophy, which is widely practiced in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, while Analytic Philosophy is widely practiced in the USA, England, Canada, Australia, Scandinavia and probably Israel too... as they put much emphasize on it here in the Universities... that might explain why I've grown to be such a keen practitioner in Analytic Philosophy.

Regardless of it, after a short reading there, I've come to the conclusion that these two philosophies generally differ in the subjects that they explore. This makes sense, as being exact is not something of a choice, it's your way of creating a clear model of a certain subject, which is something universal, it appears.

Edit: Oh, and one last note, using the method I raised, of being consistent and definite (you can phrase it: being consistent by being definite, as there is not other way to be truly consistent), is considered the highest form of thinking, it's abstract thinking, and many of the greatest philosophers were abstract, and calling it "closed-box thinking" is missing the point entirely. Abstract thinkers are usually the more prolific thinkers. And yes, even abstract existentialists.

And I did not say you're not allowed to have a philosophical discussion, only said that it was not a philosophical discussion. You cannot call the discussion above a discussion about chemistry, now can you? It must meet certain criteria, just like with philosophy. Not every discussion about life is philosophy. Sharing a personal experience of a crisis that caused a change in your life is not philosophy. If you like, I could show you how a philosophical discussion about crisis and life should look like.

Edit: Jesus, Blackthorne... that's shocking indeed. Looks like a good film, though.

[Blackthorne519]

Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schleigle.
There's nothing Neitzsche couldn't teach ya bout the raisin' of the wrist.

Socrates himself was permanantly pissed.


Bt

[Vildern]

I think that's from Monty Python, but I'm not too sure

[Blackthorne519]

I think that's from Monty Python, but I'm not too sure

Heh.  You'd be correct, sir!


Bt

[druuge]

Then wouldn't that be a change of nature? A gradual change, yes, but a change nonetheless.

Interesting convo...I wonder if a neat adventure game could be cooked up from this one thought? Maybe not in itself, but in the character development in the story as a focus.

Already done, Planescape: Torment is where I think the OP got "What can change the nature of a man?"