Where Is Man's Inner Compass?

Perfect word for soul, Lynn...energy...yes, life energy. I have a female mother pug dog here that still mourns Champy and is not the same. She is a sadder dog since Champy died.......and the others always visit the grave where he is buried. They will stop there and look sad....and not anywhere else on the property here. just happened again today. They know.

 

Everything that Exists - IS
Such Being is fundamental to each , as is the connection to all
existence can only be made aware by another existence
we decide for ourselves and how we act upon our decisions determines the experiences we attract to each individual self
awareness Grows ? ! god grows ? we grow ?
in growth does there remain a moral constant, or does the culture affect and sometimes effect the moral code ?

One must always take into account how one weights ones position within the co-creation, and as time passes a constant does appear - Change.
Some say It also becomes apparent that we ourselves personify our perception with value judgements; that in time with more experiences - change and morph into new values assigned. For some the whole question of why and what becomes a growing to greater awarenesses - as we grow - our "answers" grow and change....

 

True story. As the animal cemetery out there has grown, I've still always had animals. This last few years has been different, but there is right this very minute a pregnant female (who will be spayed after having kittens) that has taken residence.

What I was getting to was: every single solitary time an animal was added out there, the resident cats always came and gathered while the digging and burying took place. all of them would gather around in a way I knew they knew one of them had gone...that their energy was free and no longer there.

people can say what they want about cats. I know from a life time of living with them. A cat absolutely can feel your feelings. Everytime that hole was dug and those emotions (of mine) were out raw like that, those cats knew something sad and big was up with me, each time they knew. I'll always believe that anyway.

When Jack died and Brownie was left here with just BB, that took a lot of getting used to. hell, we're still getting used to it, but I digress.

Animals definitely feel emotions toward different people differently. We'd all be wise to heed them.

 

I had a cat that came into my room the night she died and just stared at me. I started laughing, 'cause I thought it was funny the way she was staring at me, with such wisdom in her eyes. I wish I had taken her seriously and said goodbye. The last I saw of her alive was before I went to bed, and she was running in her sleep. The next morning she was dead, still in that running position.

 

yes, so true, Lynn about cats....They are around every time I have buried a family member. Spanky cat has been with me every time. they feel, too. When I am sad they all come around me trying to cheer me up with their silly antics or just trying to be comforting.......

I think it also depends on how we see anything and treat anything...You treat an animal like it is important and has feelings, too...and with love and kindness...It will blossom into something wonderful...just like people...treat an animal like dirt and like it is nothing except for whatever one wants it to be to them, then that is the garden one may also sew.

 

Yes and it's a deplorable situation - although let's not forget that hypocrisy is rife among Christians as among many other groups.

 

there is no 'unnatural morality'. there is only a game of lets all pretend the same thing, which is really fun to play, until people start hurting and killing everyone who gets tired of playing it, or was just never interested in doing so to begin with. natural morality is wanting to live in a world where people don't go around looking to hurt each other, and then realizing, how one must regulate themselves, and actually doing so, to avoid creating a world in which people do.

 

well, back to my question, and I meant man's inner compass...not what the Bible says, or what society says or a guidebook of what is right and wrong...what is fair minded....and knowing these things intrinsically.
empathy, included here....

i have been thinking about this, and maybe man's inner compass boils down to neurology and science...We all have a primitive brain, paleo cortex... and we share that with all animals....some people act on the primitive brain stem more than others....and maybe that has to do with how the brain is formed in each individual, etc....

I don't think this is the only thing that determines an inner compass.....but may be one of the key factors.

 

it takes place in most people on a subconscious level. that's why some call it their heart instead of their brain. but of course it is actual some part of the brain in which it takes place, or possibly that mysterious non-physical end user, should it happen to exist, and i see no reason it can't, otherwise known as the soul. but at any rate, you see a situation that isn't right, that makes you feel terrible, and on some level, wither conscious or not, you ask yourself how can people act in such a way, that a condition like that, would never occur. and then you try to regulate yourself in such a way as to at least not contribute yourself to bad things happening. i think its different from one person to another, as to how conscious or otherwise the process might be. i suspect it may be one of the few true instincts, if there even are such things as instincts, what we as humans, as are most life forms which have brains, are born with. and then the traumas of child hood, motivate some people to supress this. but its always there inside.

and indeed it has nothing to do with anything that comes from a book or what anyone else tries to teach them. the supression of conscience does. but not conscience itself.

 

Yes, those are other factors.......upbringing.....etc.....what has happened to you in childhood can make a person mean and not empathetic at all. A friend of mine had a terrible childhood and was telling me what a mean bully she was in grade school. i was not sure I wanted to be her friend anymore after I heard all of those stories.....especially when I said...."So what turned the corner for you and made you nice?"
She replied..."I still have that mean streak".... and at times I hear it and get scared.....

but not everyone that had a terrible childhood turns out mean....and I think that has to do with science again and the brain itself.

 

Even as I start this post, I wonder if I should post it. It has to do with one's inner moral compass though, and it is regarding the clip Moonglow posted in the Hippie thread about the cop killing the dog that merely stepped outside his owner's apartment to check on what was happening.

Then the cops (rather brutally) "took down" the dog's owner. I'm sure she was really menacing in her underwear as she was trying to comfort her dying dog. :eyeroll:

I wish there were a test of some sort that ALL PEOPLE APPLYING TO BE A COP HAD TO TAKE that would determine if they have that inner moral compass.

My son and I have discussed how (we feel) it is very unfortunate that way too many are in law enforcement because they are really sociopaths seeking a way to legally be in control and kill. Same thing for LOTS of people in the military.

Thing is: I think we need cops! We need a way to enforce laws, and I also think we need the military...we ALSO need some way to test them, moreso than we do now.

the end

 

One thing I've noticed in dealings with police and criminals is that they are often similar types of people. Not in every case, but a significant number. Many military people seem to be of a different type.

I'm no psychologist, but I would have thought that some kind of profiling or tests to determine a persons attitudes must surely exist.

 

Do you really care about "mans inner compass"? To me it sounds like you are searching, perhaps longing for the answer that comes from a series of questions like these.

"Who am I?"

"Why am I here?"

If you really think about the question you asked, "where is mans inner compass" it really doesnt nake any sense at all. Its because you are asking about something that has not been proven to exist. It is a disease on this planet and very probably other worlds that exist in the universe.

I feel like every time i go back to a church, or a temple and listen to the lunacy mixed with good feels and half a million words of ape history, which are mostly direct accounts from apes i mean i dont even trust my own thought processes this world is so much more silly than i thought it was when I was little.

 

What an intelligent and civil discussion this has been so far. I hope I don't mess it up. I'll share some thoughts on the evolution of ethics and morals which might be half-baked for the purpose of getting them out where I and others can have a better look and decide what, if anything, might have merit. These are simply ideas I've developed from reading and thinking about the subject. It's admittedly sketchy and I'm not sure anyone else will be able to follow it, but it's out there and I hope can provoke some questions and discussion.

1. Inner moral conflicts. Humans do have an inner compass (i.e., an community-oriented ethical sense that's probably hard-wired), but it competes with instincts for self=preservation. Evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson argues that starting probably with homo habilis the brain became modularized into a competitive part governed by individual selection, and a cooperative part governed by group selection. The struggle between these conflicting instincts provides the basis for the religious concept of original sin.

2. Empathy and reciprocal altruism. Our morality is rooted in two instincts, empathy and reciprocal altruism, which are shared by other animals. Empathy is the ability to identify with or understand another's situation or feelings. Animal studies suggest that it is experienced by other species including rats: http://freefromharm.org/farm-animal-intelligence/rats-not-only-show-compassion-but-arguably-more-than-some-humans-in-unprecedented-new-uofc-study/; http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/2/8/10925098/animals-have-empathy.http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_evolution_of_empathy Reciprocal altruism is "a behavior whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time." It has been documented in cleaner fish, birds, vampire bats, primates, etc.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism The problem with these as a basis for human morality is that they tend to be confined to genetically related individuals, or to those perceived as closely similar.

3. Learned norms. In human societies, most behavior is a product of social learning, not instinct. Communal impulses are reinforced and elaborated into customs, mores, norms, taboos, etc., by elders who develop rituals to bind the group together. Unfortunately, this typically means ethical distance between the group and outsiders, who are often not even considered human.

4. Trade with strangers. As societies became more affluent and began to trade with one another, they had to develop at least minimal ways of getting along, which became embodied in additional norms.

5. Inter-tribal states. The development of political organization led to expansion and conquest of neighboring groups of people who were not biologically related, and as rulers tried to consolidate their gains and promote internal harmony, they promoted norms that would include conquered peoples--strangers--into the circle of ethical concerns. The twin forces of conquest and commerce led to the development of sizeable empires that had to be kept intact by new normative systems. Pressures for large-scale social organization increased with the development of irrigated agriculture in the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, India, China, etc. This stimulated the expansion and complexity of co-operative norms.

6. Concerned gods and the "nasty parts". Primitive societies tended to be animistic, emphasizing nature and spirits, but as society grew more complex, gods and their priests developed, possibly reflecting the development of social and political hierarchy. Gods began to take an interest in human conduct. Among the Canaanites and Hebrews, the High God, El, presided over the council of gods and gave fatherly guidance. The name Isra-el reflects his involvement with the Hebrew Patriarchs like Abraham, whom he visited and broke bread with before warning of the destruction of Sodom. The advent of horses and chariots gave rise to marauders and more aggressive, capricious younger gods like Indra, Marduk, Zeus and Baal, and led El and some of the older gods to undergo a makeover. El became the fearsome Yahweh, who told Moses He was the same God known to Abraham as El-Shaddai.

6.. Codes and Sacred Texts The increasing scale and complexity of societies contributed to the development of Codes claiming divine authorship in which the expected norms were written down: the Code of Hammurabi, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Solon's Code, the Draconian Code, the Ten Commandments, etc. We also have the appearance of sacred scriptures conveying supposedly inspired truths about divinity and its relationships with humans: the Vedas, the Avesta, the Torah, etc

7. The Axial Age (800-200 B.C.) Radical changes in human spiritual development occurred in several major societies, leading to the Upanishads, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Greek thinkers, and the Hebrew Prophets. Ethical systems became more universalistic, rational, and concerned with social justice. Principles of reciprocal altruism: Golden rule and variations.
.
8. Proselytizing Abrahamic monotheistic religions, universal love, and new sacred texts: Judaic religion is revamped as a universalistic religion for Gentiles. Rise of Christianity and Islam (1st-8th centuries and after), with the New Testament and the Qur'an as new sacred texts building on Judaic foundation. Religions offering universal salvation compete for followers. Jesus and Paul preach universal love; Muhammad's militant monotheism spreads across the Middle East, northern Africa, Indonesia, etc.

9. Secular ethical systems emerge18th & 19th centuries), emphasizing general ethical principles. Kant (categorical imperative);Utilitarianism ( Bentham's "greatest happiness for the greatest number; Mill's "harm principle").

10. Present state of confusion: Elements of these previous traditions live on in our religions and "modern" ethical systems. Yes, I think the codes, general ethical principles and concern with justice are an improvement over "natural" ethics. But the "nasty stuff" is still embedded in our ethical systems, especially in religious fundamentalism of all persuasions. We can only hope that nice prevails over nasty in the evolutionary struggle among memes.

 

I try to follow my inner compass...

But all it does is point me towards food. Or just generally in the wrong direction lol.

That's just my own perspective though. I could just be lacking clarity.

 

For the sake of chronological accuracy, Secular Ethical Systems arose with the Socratics through the Hellenistic era (500- B.C.E.-150 C.E.) late Axial ;post Axial. The Kantian and utilitarian systems of the nineteenth century were a kind of second wave.

 

Thanks. You're right, and I thought I'd already corrected that.

 

If you think about the body, our heart is our moral compass. There are so many of us though, so its easy to understand why people lose direction. That's why its important to both spend time alone to reflect, and to get outside so that that we can get a good sense of North.

I guess I'm at the point where I'm trying to find North online on the internet. There's so much stuff an arms distance away, it's like having a Pizza Store in your bedroom. I've never gotten too comfortable online sharing my own ten cents, so I guess I'm like the guy who shows up at parties just to have the pizza. But thats the reason that I joined Hip Forums, so that there's a place I can talk with similar people who have the same questions and doubts as me.

But anyway, best wishes for everybody here to resolve their inner dilemmas and find their own enlightened answers ; )

 

Morals are the fear that there will be consequences, a learned behavior. Humans and several animals have learned to behave aware of and connecting to consequences. My dog fears having bad behaviors because he's learned to be afraid of what could happen if he acts out. Sure he's not a saint or a highly trained dog.