Bits Of Wisdom Which Deserve Quotation

[Holiday20310401]

Yes but if you were completely selfless would you be able to be completely selfless? .... Sorry that sounds like a person selfish to be selfless. Thus since it is impossible to be selfless completely that person would act selfishly to stop acting selfish, by committing suicide. So committing suicide is a selfish action and is therefore not selfless?
SO my quote "If a person was to become completely selfless they would commit suicide." is silly because being completely selfles means not acting at all.

Wow I just contradicted myself lol.

Question: to all of a sudden decide to become completely selfless would mean to want to stop acting and thus living or having potential at all right? So for somebody to be selfless would have the logical outcome of suicide?

[Didymos Thomas]

Yes but if you were completely selfless would you be able to be completely selfless? .... Sorry that sounds like a person selfish to be selfless.

How? I understand that if I desire the respect of others for being selfless that I am selfish in said desire. But acting in a selfless manner does not necessarily demand that the agent only acts for the recognition of being selfless.

Then again, I'm not really sure I understand you. So, if I missed the point, I'm sorry - and please elaborate!

SO my quote "If a person was to become completely selfless they would commit suicide." is silly because being completely selfles means not acting at all.

I don't see how being selfless demands that we never act. Often times, non-action is probably wise, but if I see a small child drowning and I do nothing, when I could easily jump in the water and save the poor kid, my inaction is far from selfless.

Question: to all of a sudden decide to become completely selfless would mean to want to stop acting and thus living or having potential at all right? So for somebody to be selfless would have the logical outcome of suicide?

Again, I do not see the logic of absolute non-action if we are trying to be selfless.
And suicide is certainly an action, anyway.

NoOne - Hey, thanks for the reply! You make excellent points with the counter examples.

Barring counter examples in which suicide is the only alternative to harming others, I cannot imagine cases of selfless suicide. Barring such cases, suicide seems entirely selfless.

[Holiday20310401]

Didymos,
Yeah you understood correctly.

Every action is selfish right, at least from what I understand, but an action also has a selfless aspect right? Perhaps its all about what the action is intending, to be selfless or selfish, and the more wisdom you have the more accurately your intentions hold true to the outcome, in terms of how selfless and selfish it actually is.

[Didymos Thomas]

Every action is selfish right, at least from what I understand

See, here we disagree.

Perhaps its all about what the action is intending, to be selfless or selfish, and the more wisdom you have the more accurately your intentions hold true to the outcome, in terms of how selfless and selfish it actually is.

Being a good person does take practice. And we could all probably use a great deal more practice.

Selfish/selfless refer to intentions. Having absolutely selfless intentions is difficult; again, takes practice - and I'm no where close, to be sure.

[Holiday20310401]

What's your view, cause I believe every action is actually both selfish and selfless, just more or less of each for each different action.

A person can intend on being selfish and selfless at the same time.

[Didymos Thomas]

Generally, you are right - our actions often contain both selfish and selfless intentions. 'I'll donate to a food drive, get rid of all these cans of food I'll never eat that just take up pantry space.'

But I see no reason to say that all actions are necessarily selfish. Mostly because such a claim is non falsifiable - it cannot be proven. Such a claim assumes that the claimant can discern every intention of every individual to have ever lived. Sounds silly to me.

[Holiday20310401]

Well isn't it nesseccary that an actrion would actually contain even minimal selfishness. Of course I believe that it is not necesary to intend to be selfish, and intentions are more important.

[Didymos Thomas]

Well isn't it nesseccary that an actrion would actually contain even minimal selfishness.

Not that I can tell.

[Holiday20310401]

Nice, 1000 posts!
Here give me an action for me to try to determine the selfishness to it, make it a situation if you must.

[Didymos Thomas]

Thanks

Here give me an action for me to try to determine the selfishness to it, make it a situation if you must.

No point. No matter the example, we can find possibilities for selfish motivation. The problem is actually showing the motivation to be selfish. Unless you can read minds, there is no way to show all actions are necessarily selfish.

If I save a child from drowning, you might suggest that my motivation was selfish - I didn't want to be remembered as the guy who chose not to save the child, so I saved the child. But this sort of speculation is terribly misleading. If I'm jumping in a body of water to save a drowning child, I'm probably not doing so to benefit myself I'm probably doing so to save the kid.