Another dimension

A friend once told me that fear is the most primal of our emotions. I never went to verify this fact. I was not keen in doing so for a long time…

Blindly assuming what my friend told me to be true, I asked myself, ‘why is fear important?’. I was expecting an answer for why we have emotions; but instead I had bumped into another realm.

When we perceive some immediate danger or threat to life we begin to panic. As consequence to this we take to our heels. Sometimes we may fight against our fears, but that is different. Running away from danger is one of the most primitive of actions, but seemingly one of the most important ones, because that is arguably why we have survived for so long.

We unconsciously don’t want to get ourselves destroyed. We don’t want to feel pain, suffering or face death. Remarkably, this is how we evolved. This is probably why you don’t see mass suicides because of some irrational reason. (For e.g., once believed lemming rats running out to sea).

With this concept in mind I developed another idea; I gave the term survival a new significance – a new meaning. It is not survival of the fittest. It simply means merely staying alive. It is not about natural selection either. I believe the evolution of every species on earth somehow supports or reflects this idea of survival.

Both survival of the fittest and natural selection has something in common. I think they signify or suggest competition as a means to stay alive. The idea of survival is no different; it does suggest competition as means to staying alive. But there are other things this idea suggests. You will learn more about it in the coming blogs…

But this argument should be viewed at from a philosophical perspective only. And I am only saying this thanks to the forum people from the biology-online.com; I had this confusion whether this can be viewed scientifically or not. But now I think it is safer and probably healthier to look at it philosophically.

Original quest

Understanding behaviour has a lot to do with evolutionary science. I hope I am not speaking like a scientist. But it somewhat perplexes me.

Well, the reason behind this existence of this blog started with inquiry into emotion – why we have it, what is its purpose? “Communication” might be an answer, but it is only a part of it. However, it is evident that emotion requires some sort of interaction. Meaning if humans existed in isolation, then emotions would not make sense...

Trying to find a reason for that I guess I’ve stumbled into other things. Let me warn you, you might appreciate whatever I mention in here provided you look at it with a philosophic perspective. I am not a philosopher yet!!! But this frame of mind can broaden the scope of this blog.

Coming back to emotion, well I have not got any thing yet. But I rake it out at another place: biology-online.org; I’ve joined a forum there and I never believed I would get a response, but people are actually into it. Click here to go to the forum page.

People don't often die...

The title is not meant to be ironic or sarcastic. Every second someone or the other dies around the world for some reason. If you look at the title with this perspective you might feel it is kind of negative, but it is not. It is actually something interesting. Look at it from another angle.

Have you ever heard of any living species committing mass suicide?

Well, lemming rats are known to die in unison; they are reported to simply jump into the ocean. But even that has a reason:

Humans have actually observed this phenomenon so long ago and it has been handed down to many generations as a legend: The Pied Piper of Hamelin. But people might be more familiar with this tv commercial which is based on that legend:

The point is its rare to see any species commit suicide in large numbers. However, if you have heard of such a case, I bet it is infrequent and, the numbers of individuals who die form an insignificant percentage of the whole population. You probably would have heard of the phrase "survival of the fittest"; this whole post revolves around one word in that - "survival".

The question you should be asking is why are we designed to survive?

For human beings although death is an inevitable part of life, no one lives life thinking they will die the next day. But a less observed fact is that our body is a fortress in itself to a degree. There are so many mechanisms which are kind of pre-wired without which our "survival" would have otherwise a challenge in an evolutionary sense. Humans have come a long way on the road of evolution...each turn has had its impacts as a result of which we are alive today. It may be misleading to believe it was merely because of "those impacts", but the inevitable fact is we still survive today.

I'll leave you to figure out the answer to the question I've opened. After all that is the point of this whole blog...

Last updated: 19th March 2013

Figuring out life

I happen to be a civil engineering student presently. I am not a biologist, evolutionist, or a psychologist. I just happen to enjoy understanding more about life, culture, finding reasons for absurd questions, etc.

This blog is meant to be a place to share few of my thoughts. But I want everyone to understand that I am not consciously trying to rouse a conflict.

This blog was started a long time back. In one sense it is revived. Some things have changed. I plan to write my blogs short in logical stretches. That way I believe I don’t have to engage you in reading long, really long articles where you stop in between and find that you are lost. I am not a professional writer you know.

Although this blog may sound formal to you, it is because otherwise you would misconstrue something or the other. All my future blogs will be short (with no guarantee however). But they will be definitely logical and concise. However, I want everyone to realize that ‘sharing ideas’ and ‘sharing ideas via blogs’ is completely new to me. It does not mean that I don’t know how to use a blog; it simply means that I have not done such a thing like this (i.e. sharing strange ideas) before.

Well like I said I am trying to share ideas. I am not an expert at making them either. But I find fascination in trying to find answers to strange things: phenomena. For e.g. why aren’t there cases of mass suicide? You’ll know more about it in the next blog.

I would like this place to be interactive. Sometimes I may write some blunder without the knowledge. Your criticisms will definitely support this blog, my quest for knowledge about weird things and will widen your awareness. Although this is not a forum to have an actual discussion, which is what I prefer, you can at least give a comment. This blog allows you to do so. (just look of “comments” link after every blog).