[The One and Only...]

Originally Posted by theapportioner

Utterly ridiculous on all counts. First, you skirt my question. And once you have something, you no longer desire it. Desire is not additive in the way you have proposed. And you proposed that DESIRE FOR CERTAIN OBJECTS are innate. This idea is so goddamn laughable, it needs no more explication. Your concept of 'human nature' is totally, utterly confused. Short of physical modification of human brains, desire won't end - we will always desire what we LACK. It does not follow that creating more objects of desire (capitalism does this) leads to more happiness. On the contrary, capitalism works as people have new wants and needs. Neverending chain of desire production. For capitalism to grow, desire for new things has to be created. If everyone were content, capitalism would be dead.

I used empirical fact to support my argument. At least one member in society has always seeked for more, or else no change would ever occur.

I did not say that desire is additive, I said that our desires can not be fulfilled. Humanity will always desire what it lacks. Capitalism just develops what we desire. Again, you have not proven that desire is inherently bad - in fact, I would refuse to live in a world without desire.

It is far from "rediculous" to assume that certain objects are desired innately. You provide nothing to back up such a statement. After all, is not food an object which is innately desired?

The reasons objects are desired is because of what objects can do. Food can stop hunger, and glasses can correct vision impairment. Both of these ends - the end of hunger and vision impairment - are desired, and objects can supply them. The form of the object is all but irrelevant; suffice to say they want the most efficient form for the object as possible.

I find the neverending chain a beautiful creation that allows us to continually progress. How could you ever want to end it?

Bullshit. Total crap. First of all, the latter part of this quote doesn't follow from the former. And again, there is no 'preexisting desire' for a new product, say the newest fashion. We are introduced to it via advertisements and such. Advertisements implant the idea, the desire in one's head (one could use the word 'meme' here). These new products are desired because they fall into existing social conventions - a need to 'look cool' or 'be up with the latest fads', and so on. The ads tell us that this is the way to do it. Once again, your concept of 'human nature' is ridiculous (I don't even understand why you call it this). Desire for something is CREATED.

Bullshit. Total crap. The need to 'look cool' is still a desire that was not created and was inherent. Again, the form of the object is irrelevant - it still remains that the object was desired, though perhaps not comprehended.

According to your theory, there would be no way to quantify desire. Everything would be desired equally. But clearly this is not the case, because people desire things in different intensities and amounts. Sometimes, they do not desire things AT ALL. Clearly, certain objects can fulfill desires better than others, which makes them more profitable.

Futhermore, all that I said about the actions companies take is true - people within corporations do not just spontaneously come up with ideas, they recieve customer feedback and assign human resources appropriately.

You also have not provided anything through reason or fact to support your argument.

Creation of desire itself isn't necessarily bad. Capitalism, however, is a neverending source of desire production. Though I do not deny that capitalism has its valuable points, always desiring cannot be good for human mental health. Capitalism thrives as long as peoples' desires are NEVER filled. NEVER.

So, you admit that ideas create desires? While I disagree with that, let us assume that is correct. Ideas are not going to end, so desire will not either. In that light, capitalism seeks to make everyone as happy as possible by keeping up the production of desire.

Disagree. Reasoning is a product of language learning. Reacting to an attacking bear is not 'reasoning' - it is an instinctual response of course, but not reasoning in any conventional sense. Nor is finding food or water, or flying back to the nest, or taking a shit. Just about any animal can do this. Unless you want to say that fish 'reason' too, but then the term becomes diluted and practically meaningless. Furthermore, per Wittgenstein's private language argument, there can be no language that is exclusively one's own - one would not be able to assign meaning to these private signs. Reasoning, because of its necessary association to language, is therefore not instinctual and not present in the subconscious at birth (or at all - there is no subconscious 'language').

Define reasoning, and then I'll dig in. We may be functioning under different operators. After all, doesn't that completely eliminate spatial reasoning?