quote:

Do us all a favor, stick to the randomosity boards until you grow up

Be nice, no need for an argument.

Alright then.

Bella, thank you for correcting my grammar. Whatever was I thinking to be concerned with valid points first, and grammar second. Do us all a favor, stick to the randomosity boards until you grow up and can post something with content.

Greenleaf, I am not trying to prove anything other than the fact that not all actions are governed by fear, which you intially claimed, and have now retracted. If one claims that all of something is a particular way, all one needs to do is show one example where that is not the case for the initial claim to be determined false. I have done that, and you have conceded. Whether or not MANY of our actions are motivated by fear in part or in whole is a matter of opinion until there is scientific evidence to back it up.

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universalizable

Not a word.

You have no psychological or scientific evidence either, I might remind. I wasn't claiming that every emotion is fear, I said that many times you have a fear of an emotion.

I'd like to tell you you've won just to make you go away, because I feel that you are saying the same thing repeatedly. Obviously we're just not understanding each other. Saying that you are right and I am ignorant, foolish, uninformed, and uneducated not only makes you look intolerant, but arrogant. However, it should make you happy to see that I have reconsidered and understand that not every action is governed by fear, but many. Very few actions are governed by "direct" fear, but that was not what I was trying to prove in the first place.

Yes, you do have very good points, but I feel that if I met you in person, it would be easier for me to explain to you my position. clpo has stated it to the closest I can explain to you.

It you want to believe you have won, go ahead. But I'll be prepared to debate you when we have enough evidence to even begin to debate with substantial "scientific" and "psychological" evidence. Perhaps it will be on CNN'S "Crossfire" in a decade or two.

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I might want to go to law school because possibly (unconsciously) I have a fear of not being able to do what I want to or having a fear of being out of my element. When I am in a large group of people, I have a fear of being embarassed. While you might term embarassment on its own, I do not. You have a fear of being embarrassed until you actually are embarrassed. Don't you see where I'm coming from even if you don't agree with it?

You're trying to universalize something that is not universalizable. That's like me saying, deep down inside, everyone is conservative. You may not be aware of it, but you really are a conservative deep down inside who is against homosexual rights, loves George W. Bush, and supports any American conquest regardless of the reason. I know you are unaware, but can you really deny that buring feeling inside that tells you that you sympathize with the conservative cause? All I'm saying is underneath all of your convictions lies the true desire to be associated with conservatives and support their ideals.

Yes, what you are claiming is as ridculous as what I just claimed. And if you think for one instant with no backing from the scientific or pyschological community that you can pass your biased, uninformed and individualized claim off as fact with no reasoning besides "that deep feeeling" then you're absolutely absurd. You just said "while you might term embarassment on its own, I do not". Now we're dealing with a language problem. You are classifying every emotion as fear, and therefore every emotion has to be fear, whether or not it actually is. Honestly, if you truly believe that every single action of every single person is motivated by fear, not only are you beyond wrong and ignorant, but you make yourself look foolish. Even in the face of objections, you continue to argue a moot point with no additional evidence to back up your claims, only the same counterargument which I have defeated time and time again and which you yourself have granted.

You keep talking in terms of possibilities and hypotheticals, yet you have no general claim which supports your maxim that you're trying to universalize! I honestly can't believe I've wasted this much time and energy destroying your argument only to have you restate it in exactly the same form and myself trying to defeat it. If you continue to hold to your claim, then you'll have to accept my claim, without any scientific or psychological backing that everyone is a conservative, deep down inside because you can't deny that feeling.

Breathe, Stallion. *In* *Out*

Yes, there are other emotions. All I'm saying is that underneath all of those, is fear. It may not be a conscious fear, but you have fears. Always.

I might want to go to law school because possibly (unconsciously) I have a fear of not being able to do what I want to or having a fear of being out of my element. When I am in a large group of people, I have a fear of being embarassed. While you might term embarassment on its own, I do not. You have a fear of being embarrassed until you actually are embarrassed. Don't you see where I'm coming from even if you don't agree with it?

Greenleaf, you may have fear dominate your life and control every action, but it is certainly not the case in my own. As I have shown, there are other emotions and desires and instincts that motivate my actions beyond fear. While fear may underlie every action for yourself (which blows my mind since I highly doubt that fear controls your reflexs or instinctual behavior to wake up in the morning or fall asleep), it is certainly not the case for everyone, let alone myself.

quote:

Originally posted by Greenleaf771:
Itallion, but you will always have of fear of not having something. "I fear that I will be unhappy," motivates me to become happy. It's all in the underlying motives and emotions, is it not?

NO! This is what I've been saying all along! I eat food because I am hungry, not because I have a fear of starving. Sure, if I don't eat for 10 days, I will have a fear of starving. But if it is two hours after I have eaten breakfast and I am hungry, I'll look for something to eat. If I find something, fantastic, that instinctual goal will be satisfied. If not, I'll try and walk it off until I can't stand it and feel like I need food. Either way, in the first case, it is the desire to fulfill a need that leads me to seek out food, not fear of not having food.

In the same manner, I might decide to go to law school. In making this decision, I don't say "hey, I'm afraid of failure, so I have to do law school." On the contrary, I say "wow, if I go to law school, I'll probably be in debt for at least 10 years, won't even be guarenteed a job after graduation, could end up making insufficient money, and I might hate my job, but I'm going to do it anyways because right now, this is what I WANT to do."

We make some decisions not based on the fear of failing in some way, but rather on the basis of what we are looking for. We attempt to satisfy some need or desire (and that need may very well be the aversion of fear). I can act out of pity, love, hate, fear, angst, hunger, thirst, desire to preform various bodily function for relief. Heck, if I decide to use the restroom, am I doing this because I'm afraid of my own excriment piling up inside of me, or the fear of contracting negative health concerns that could severely damage me if I allow my excriment to stay inside me? NO! I use the restroom because I gotta go. It's either instinctual or it's a desire to avoid pain; no fear involved. Ask yourself if you really feel fear motivating you to use the restroom.

I can't believe I've never looked at this thread before. Sorry if I repeat anything.

I don't know if someone's mentioned it yet, but do you think fear and worry are the same?

You see, I worry about stuff but I don't get afraid very often. As far as a physical fear, I do not like spiders. But I've even gotten over that somewhat (I'll at least get close enough to kill them when I see them). Other than that, I don't experience fear very often.

I think the only kind of fear I really have is panic fear: In which you find out something has happened to someone you care about and suddenly freak out because you don't want to be without them.

So fear doesn't really affect me very much. I don't not do things out of fear. I used to be that way and then I realized that I like trying new things, no matter how they may turn out. So....okay I don't know where I'm going with this. Sorry if I interuppted the debate.

Itallion, but you will always have of fear of not having something. "I fear that I will be unhappy," motivates me to become happy. It's all in the underlying motives and emotions, is it not?

Courage is fear holding on one minute longer.

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Italian, you said earlier that people do things for the sheer passion of it, and because it gives them pleasure and makes them happy. Obviously that's not driven by fear, correct? Wrong. It can be. Fear of being unhappy. Fear of not having pleasure. It may not be that way in every case, but surely it is in a great deal of them. Why do people have sex? Because it gives them pleasure. And what are the consequences of no sex? No pleasure. So people have sex because they're afraid of not having the pleasure that comes with sex.

clpo, you just stated exactly what I've been saying all along. Fear is not the motivating emotion for ALL actions. Yes, some people who are completely uncomfortable in a situation that their only motivation is fear of failure or whatever. But as you and Greenleaf have said, there are obviously circumstances where fear is not the motivating factor. I have illustrated this throughout and neither yourself, Greenleaf or anyone else has contested my examples. You have provided additional hypotheticals where you change the situation, but you have not answered the original objection. SOME, not all, but SOME actions are done strictly for pleasure, not fear of not getting pleasure, and vice versa. You can't generalize that fear is the motivating emotion for all our actions, but your initial claim that "fear may not rule every decision we make" is accurate. Whether it is the majority or minority of our decisions that are motivated by fear, it is certainly not all of them.

Celtic is right, fear can be a good motivation, as it leads us to preform actions that are beneficial to us either in the short or long run.

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Celtic, fear is a difficult thing to avoid, don't you think?

Of course it can't be avoided, what I mean is, don't let it run your life. Never quit a goal out of fear, or just stop doing something because of fear (unless the fear is deserved, such as being afraid of risky sex).

Fear, in some cases, is good. It can mean precation (sp?).

"Fear. It's the oldest tool of power. If you're distracted by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above." - Mulder, The X-Files.

Ooh! Or "Everything you do is triggered by an emotion of either desire or fear." - Brian Tracy.

I don't think fear is an emotion easily defined for anyone. Every human being is different; it's why all our responses are so differed when ask 'what is fear?'

Does it control all actions? For some. Does it underlie every emotion? Again, for some. Fear is objective and personal, differing between every person on the planet.

Also, Greenleaf, Celtic didn't say to AVOID fear completely, she simply said not to let it control you.

Fear is like every other emotion, nothing special nor overwhelming. You can let it control you, or you can let it just be a part of your life just like love, hate, passion, apathy, desire, etc. are.

Oh, I also forgot to add that fear is natural. Many things that we're frightened of, we're frightened of for a reason. It may be bad for us, or displeasing to us. For instance, many are afraid of death because...well, death is bad for you, in a strictly medical sense. You're dead, after all.

So instead of avoiding all fear or letting it rule you, you need to find a happy medium where fear keeps you from doing stupid things such as driving your car off a cliff just for the heck of it but still allows you to live a normal life without always being afraid of pianos falling from the sky onto your head.

That's what I was going for, clpo. Though I'm still convinced guilt plays a substantial part in our day-to-day actions. Negative and Positive emotions feed off each other.

Celtic, fear is a difficult thing to avoid, don't you think?

Fear doesn't control you unless you allow it to.

Fear may not rule every decision we make, but it certainly is enough motive for most of them. Take wars. Wars are fought because one nation is afraid in some way of another encroaching on their land/resources/power/freedom or other such things. Fear is involved. People fear death. They take extreme care to avoid dangerous situations and invent drugs to prolong lifespans or cure diseases. More fear. When confronted by an armed robber, a person would rather give up his money and other possessions than be shot and killed. Fear of death. This can even be taken to the religious battlefield. Why do so many people believe in a god or gods? Simple. They are afraid of what happens after they die. Is there eternal punishment waiting for them? Will they drift forever in a vast nothingness? You'll notice that the majority of religions involve some sort of paradise for believers, where people live on forever. An obvious retort to death, fueled by fear of death and what lies after.

I can speak from experience that fear is a driving factor in many of my day-to-day actions. When I want to ask a girl on a date, why do I do it? Fear of not having female companionship. I tend to hang out with a large group of people. Why? Fear of being alone, in a sense. I drive the speed limit because I'm afraid of getting a speeding ticket. I avoid the bad parts of town because I'm fearful of getting injured in a gang-related incident, or I'm afraid of getting mugged. I do my school work because I'm afraid of getting a poor grade and not being accepted into the college of my choice.

Italian, you said earlier that people do things for the sheer passion of it, and because it gives them pleasure and makes them happy. Obviously that's not driven by fear, correct? Wrong. It can be. Fear of being unhappy. Fear of not having pleasure. It may not be that way in every case, but surely it is in a great deal of them. Why do people have sex? Because it gives them pleasure. And what are the consequences of no sex? No pleasure. So people have sex because they're afraid of not having the pleasure that comes with sex.

I won't touch on guilt, however, since in my opinion, it motivates substantially less than fear does. Guilt can be ignored. Fear, less easily so. Why do you think crime is a popular line of work?

Now for the problem of proof. I cannot back my claims up with scientific evidence, not yet at least, because this is a highly specialize area we are talking about. It's doubtful any experiments looking into the idea that fear underlies all actions have ever been done. Yet empirical evidence gathered by people such as you and I is just as good. Empirical evidence is that gathered from the sense. I cannot deny the cold feeling in my stomach when I'm afraid. No one can. I can't deny what my eyes see when people are afraid. No one can. If empirical evidence is not to be accepted in an argument such as this, what can?

I hope that provides for some interesting debate.

You're not understanding what I am trying to say. If you could take a step inside my brain for a day, then you'd know exactly what I was talking about. It would be nice if I could visit yours too. I will not concede, but I also wish you to stop pushing this topic until someone else comes onto it. Thanks.