Understanding survival

[Dan502]

The recent video about survival seemed to explain a kind of "everything is survival" perspective.

I wonder if it's useful to explore this perspective a bit, conceptually, in order to understand and support it, with the added caveat that doing so has its limitations in terms of developing awareness which of course goes beyond concepts. I imagine such an exercise might be useful at or below stage yellow.

For example, although it's not the only work of its kind, Dan Dennett's philosophy attempts to set out cultural evolution so that our thoughts and behaviours can be understood through the lens of survival.

Perhaps more appealing to self-actualizers would be an individual thought experiment whereby we start off with some crude, simple concepts and introduce minor variations, over and over again, imagining how new concepts are created, seemingly through sheer probability, until we have something more complex and more closely resembling our usual idea of a person.

Also, what does it mean to say that worrying about a meeting at work or a homework assignment IS survival? No doubt it's apparent that we may hurry to get there, fail to look both ways and get hit by a bus on the way to the office. *That* doesn't seem like survival. However the extent that our eyes see the bus before it hits us, the eye itself in fact, is something that, from a scientific viewpoint, evolved through repeated cycles of survival of lesser eyes.

Still, lots of things don't survive. In fact the vast majority of living organisms throughout history, so I'm told, died childless. Presumably the perspective of survival is important to us because we see ourselves as the products of such processes.

I'm not suggesting we cling too tightly to the theory here, rather that it could be beneficial to understand it in order to validate the perspective, which then acts as a base for awareness work. Afterall, maybe it's easier to recognise the survival perspective in everyday life if we have some knowledge around how it works and how it seems to have developed.

 

[Leo Gura]

You're not yet understanding what I meant by survival.

You are thinking of survival as some biological evolutionary theory. That is not what we're talking about here. I mean something much more direct and viceral.

To understand you must turn to your direct experience of life and observe how every micro thing you do is a function of survival.

Don't speculate about it, observe it happening in you. It's happening every second.

[Dan502]

That hurts like fuck.

[Leo Gura]

@Dan502 Survival is a relentless mechanism responsible for keeping you alive every day. So it's really a wondrous thing to observe.

Notice that theories are also survival.

And of course hurt is all about survival

[Ibn Sina]

The thing that I find interesting is that 'life' seems to arise spontaneously when the environment meets certain requirements.

The planet earth has all the right qualities, right amount of temperature, right amount of water, right amount of nutrients, right amount of oxygen, right humidity.

And in such conditions , unicellular organisms like bacteria, algae, etc, arise spontaneously.

Like I had eaten some noodles, and I left a little portion in the kitchen and after few days I saw life arose on it spontaneously.

But such things do not happen in extreme conditions in earth, or in planets like venus, mercury, Jupiter.

So it's like life arising and not arising depends on the environment.

It's like- Life is always there, always present, and it is always yearning to burst out, but the environment is restricting it. But whenever the environment is right, life bursts out.

There seems to be something metaphysical about it i.e associated with the very being of reality.

It seems to be omnipresent.

And once it does show up (in the right environment that is) , it yearns to survive. It wants to express itself, and not just that , it wants to spread itself, reproduce itself, it wants to keep on  going. 

Life just wants to live for the sake of living.

Edited July 4, 2019 by Ibn Sina

[Dan502]

@Leo Gura Thanks Leo

[Commodent]

@Leo Gura Is seeking enlightenment survival?

[Aakash]

Survival is a useful word for understanding consciousness. Survival does not exist, but it exists when you need to defend something. 

In short, when you want something to be other than it is. 

Edited July 4, 2019 by Aakash

[Aakash]

@Commodent yes it is, it is a way of eliminating suffering in your life. This is one way to view it. Another way to view it is, survival of needing to understand what consciousness is. 

The intent behind your search will lead to varying results and so survival leads to the elimination of distinction and the creation of diversity within a system. Such as alternating versions of enlightenment. 

[Leo Gura]

On 7/4/2019 at 5:52 AM, Commodent said:

@Leo Gura Is seeking enlightenment survival?

Depends on how you go about it.

[bejapuskas]

This is simply amazing, Remember, when @Leo Gura  said, that different survival strategies are adjusted to different climates?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9V6OKlY80k