As human beings, what drives us to higher levels of existence? Once we have satisfied the basics - food, shelter, a mate, children - then what? For many it's the idea of self-actualization, or realizing our full potential. But what does self-actualization look like? How do we know when we are doing it? Researchers recently published a new series of studies on what people think it means to be self-actualized.
But what does self-actualization look like? How do we know when we are doing it? When are we trying to realize our highest potential? Self-actualization is a popular idea -- in psychology, business, education and the multi-million dollar self-help industry. Everyone, it seems, wants to realize his or her full potential.
[...] By finding mates, keeping mates and caring for children, people might feel self-actualized, and they might also be furthering exactly those biologically relevant outcomes that lead to getting their genes into next generations.
[...] Or as Krems explained: "For real people, pursuing self-actualization might further biologically relevant goals."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170712145639.htm
[Also Covered By]: Individual perceptions of self-actualization: What motivates fulfilling one's full potential?
How would you go about achieving self-actualization ? Is self-actualization a relevant goal in this day and age ?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:29PM (20 children)
There is a biological driver behind everything that a biological phenomenon does.
If a person were happy with his lot in life, he wouldn't try having kids to ease his existential suffering, and thus he would pass on his genes with lower likelihood than someone who is searching for a way to fill the endless, dark hole in one's soul.
You are uncomfortable with what you have, because your ancestors were uncomfortable with what they had; all of the comfortable people died off in comfort.
Does this mean that death is the ultimate answer to one's comfort?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:32PM (3 children)
To hell with trying to have kids; he wouldn't even try to have meaningless sex to fill void, and we all know what can come of meaningless sex: Something as meaningful as another human being.
So, yes, you've got it right, but it's enough just consider base sensory motivations rather than something as high-level as "having children".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:50PM (2 children)
Long ago, desire for sex was equivalent to desire for kids. Even longer ago, before we understood the association between the two, it was only the desire for sex that mattered.
Well now we have birth control. People who lack a desire for kids are now being very strongly selected against. They are unfit for the new environment. Their DNA, with any affects it may have on behavior, will not be passed on to the next generation.
We're on our way to a world in which people desire making babies just as much as people of previous generations desired sex. We might even slightly lose the desire for actual sex, as long as that doesn't lead to fewer children. ("Alright, let's get it over with, I'm dying to have a baby.")
Note that in the long term, the demographic transition (advanced societies having fewer kids) is doomed. Evolution will blow that away.
Evolution is often thought to be slow, but it really isn't. Sharks and alligators haven't changed form much in many millions of years because they are still pretty optimal for the environment. Change the environment though, and things can change fast. From an evolutionary perspective, birth control is pretty damn deadly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:32PM (1 child)
It's also possible that the third-world religious nutcases will blow advanced society away.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 14 2017, @11:58PM
Religion itself fills a need - the need for parental nurture, approval, and often discipline. Perhaps that is why Islam is so violent, because the discipline aspect (which they call "submission") takes precedence over the nurturing aspect of Christianity (although certain sects of Christianity emphasize discipline more than others).
They call God a father, and are not entirely incorrect about that. I'm more about the Gaia mother thing, getting my nourishment from the Earth as if I were sucking milk from titties.
Anyway, those needs are what some refer to as "spirituality." It could also explain why millennial punks tend towards atheism -- their hovering helicopter parents were so obnoxiously overbearing that it knocked any vestigial instinctual need out of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:35PM (4 children)
Just shut up with the pop psychology.
I'm uncomfortable with what I have, so I'm striving. But not to make more kids -- I learned that lesson from my parents and other relatives. There is a much higher than normal amount of mental illness in my family, no need to pass that along to future generations.
(Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Friday July 14 2017, @05:38PM
Yea, maybe self-actualization is a bubble then. It'll pass when the current generation dies out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:41PM (2 children)
The question is "Why do you strive?" The OP gave a simple evolutionary description for why that is the case, and he's probably right.
As the other poster wrote: You don't even need to make it about "having kids"; it's enough that people strive, because that striving might mean they'll go looking for a mate (or 2 or 3), thereby increasing the chances of an accidental pregnancy.
Your genes have programmed you to be a machine that does things to increase the propagation of those genes, even if you aren't aware of this insidious purpose.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 15 2017, @11:35AM
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:13AM
> genes programmed you
this is a chicken and egg rationalization. Selection operates on both genes and complete organisms.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 14 2017, @05:41PM (1 child)
Or perhaps security itself is a biological driver. Humans (and ravens, apparently [npr.org]) have the ability to plan ahead which means we're cognizant of the fact that just 'cause we have food/shelter/etc. today doesn't mean we'll have it tomorrow.
Laying up some extras....be it wealth, stature, or whatever, is a logical conclusion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:43PM
Even people who build beautiful places to live, with a solid income of resources find themselves unsatisfied, and reach out for something more and greater.
You will never be satisfied, because the satisfied people don't procreate as much, and thus get drowned out and replaced by the unsatisfied masses.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday July 14 2017, @06:02PM (7 children)
There's a biological reason behind posting shitty opinions on a small tech website. I'm totally earning the esteem of my peers and enhancing my reproductive fitness this way! Definitely not a complete waste of time as far as evolution is concerned. Definitely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:34PM (6 children)
While it does increase the chance of "wasting" resources, it also does increase the chance of procreating.
THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS!
Why do you proles have such a hard time understanding this?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:08PM (5 children)
Right, procreation is all that matters /s
Good luck with that existential crisis you'll be having all too soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:09PM
Jeez. Can't you people keep anything straight in your heads?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:58PM (3 children)
I'm almost 43 years old. You might figure I could be having an existential crisis, given that I accept that procreation is all that matters.
Nope. I just accepted it. I live for it. My 11th kid will be born within a matter of weeks.
At this point, I'm beating almost everybody. I'm not even a polygamist, cheater, or sperm doner... but I'm beating most of them too!
Now, it could get painful for me once the wife goes infertile, but I can spend my time pestering my kids and their spouses to do their genetic duty. That'll be entertaining. Maybe I can sabotage birth control -- it is my genetic duty to do so.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @08:37PM (1 child)
I really hope that is a bunch of satire. "Beating everyone else" jeebus sweet mohammed christ
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @01:56AM
Why hope it is satire? I'm making more smart kids; somebody ought to do it. There is no mohammed here. The wife and maybe 1/3 of the kids are Catholic, myself and maybe 2/3 of the kids are atheist. The wife is hard-core: every sperm is sacred.
I am in fact beating nearly everybody. Feel free to have an existential crisis yourself, with a bunch of Sartre. My children will inherit the Earth, ha, ha, ha!!!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 15 2017, @12:05AM
Nice. My only hope is winning the lottery, assuming a fake name (I'm partial to "Juan Diego"), and going on a worldwide impregnation tour. And as the final stop of this tour, just in case, a Polynesian Island or barren African Nation where I can build a fortress, kill all the men, and spend a year or so impregnating all the women with just a few months to verify the results. It will be like Metal Gear Solid 5, and they will call me Mokele Mbembe.
I thought I had a lifetime accomplishment -- flipping off the Google Street View Car -- but those bastards are no longer blurring faces and middle-fingers like in the old days, but rather, using old footage for that one tiny slice of the city block. This is yet another instance of how the Jews keep the man down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:11PM
giggity
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @05:49PM (2 children)
Change careers a half dozen times. You can't learn everything there is to know in any given field, but you CAN learn a lot of it. Before you get all hidebound in that career, though, you jump off and do something different.
No, doing this, you don't get to become the resident expert in any of the fields you have chosen to play in. But, you do keep on learning all along the way. Life remains interesting. Even after the kids have grown up and moved away, you have a damned good reason to keep on doing whatever it is you do. Do interesting shitzls, and life remains interesting. Fun, even!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @06:39PM (1 child)
You imply that trying new things makes a person think life is fun.
Perhaps it is actually the case that thinking life is fun makes a person try new things.
You're not having fun because you're trying new things, but rather you're trying new things because you have a happy outlook on life.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 14 2017, @10:52PM
Well, we have plenty of stories where that turned out to be true though usually it involved also abandoning some dysfunctional aspect of the persons' life such as terrible living or work environments, or harmful relationships with other people.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday July 14 2017, @06:07PM (1 child)
I read the headline as "Is the need for self-fulfillment behind biological drivers [not wanting self-driving cars]."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:12PM
No need for a biological driver in your self-driving car. Trust your childrens lives to a musky death trap today.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday July 14 2017, @07:12PM (3 children)
Guys, let's talk about the what self-actualization means for college kids (attracting and retaining a sex partner) and Amazon's Mechanical Turk (persons in position of survival, for whom self-actualization is, for example: "I would just be named CEO of Microsoft.” or "I would be working in a big corporation making websites and making lots of money.")
Conclusion: self-actualization has a biological drive.
Oh, wow! I reckon they didn't quite find accomplished artists or professionals in the samples studied, I wonder why?
Now, that's a precious pearl:
Someone tell me what value has a study discussing hedonism with Mechanical Turks paid pennies/hour?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:16PM (1 child)
What if trolling you is all I need to do to reach self actualization?
Think about how much influence I have over you just by typing the words THINK ABOUT NIGGERS FUCKING GIRAFFES IN THE ASS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 14 2017, @07:23PM
I've used my mod point to help you reach self actualization.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday July 14 2017, @07:39PM
Original FA [researchgate.net] in its fullest glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Friday July 14 2017, @07:24PM (13 children)
I thought self actualization was the propaganda term according to which society, i.e. media who misrepresent society according to the respective agendas, dictate whether the person is worthy or a failure.
Realizing your own potential as much as possible is good and fun, but the NEED for it is slavery. You have been actual all your life and even if you start WWIII all by yourself, or worse, develop systemd, you won't become more actual, not one bit.
Your value to society is often independent to your intrinsic value according to a moral system, and while the former will end up being zero as time passes, the latter has meaning beyond time.
So, what pushes man to feel the need for self fulfillment? propaganda.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Friday July 14 2017, @10:27PM (3 children)
I don't believe that at all.
My drive is to be comfortable and enjoy luxury and not having to work when I don't want to work, and being able to engage in activities that may may not benefit society as a whole, without compulsion or belief I should be doing something.
I don't care what other people are doing.
That is the whole point of "self" actualization.
You're right that we're all actuals, but the propaganda you speak of is what prevents people from realizing their potential--provided that they then follow the goals of the messages laid out for them.
You will see throughout history, those that actually do manage to self-actualize tend to not be at peace with the status quo. This sometimes has turned them into objects of scorn.
In any event, your argument is well written, but I am under the impression that you're under the influence of the propaganda you speak, or that perhaps more likely, you have a different term to describe what it means when one becomes content with one's ability to be at peace with onself.
Self-actualization is, after all, possible to be achieved in limited areas of life, rather than everything. It's like attaining some degree of enlightenment but not quite getting all the way there.
Our western cultural propaganda seems to stipulate few people can achieve such heights, and so those that do are to be envied and feared in some way--or to be used as a tool to sell more things to those that have no chance, like the typical mechanical turk. Their dreams are likely to be outlandish and never achieved, so they buy things to feel happy.
I do not understand why anyone seeking self actualization is worried about their value to society (as you described) in much the same way I don't understand why anyone seeking self actualization would be worried about how much they can exploit others. It is not about that. It's about being comfortable with oneself and one's place in the world--perhaps contributing notable value, perhaps not.
I agree with all of your points in regards to slavish following of some doctrine. You can't reach that point by following the specific instructions to others, that is how one fails, and there is much philosphy from many cultures that warn about this.
It is true that people may see the self actualized as selfish, but again, that is often envy, or it may be the mistaken belief that the jerk in question actually has reached that level of fulfillment. If someone is being a jerk and exploiting others for personal gain, there is probably underlying concerns preventing them from achieving self actualization because most people that are jerks don't feel at peace with themselves.
And often enough, those that have reached self actualization are usually not proclaiming it. They've simply managed to reach that point, but that it may be obvious to others. Have you ever worked with a creative genius? They often do not know why people think they are creative or a genius or what makes them special, or really accept that this is what people think they are.
Those people are closer to self actualization than the slaves you speak of.
If you think about it, that whole church of the subgenius thing is like a perverted twist on the topic... but they are right, because having and attaining slack is one way to do it.
And that's just it -- there is more than one way to reach self actualization, and it depends on the particular self in question. Following any prescribed rules will likely lead to a dead end for most people, and devotion to such things really only works for those that felt a calling for it. Everyone else.. needs to find their own path.
What pushes *you* to feel a sense of fulfilment? (no, I don't need to know, that was rhetorical) It doesn't have to be heroic... but having that sense of fulfillment doesn't have to conform to societal norms, because you can get this sensation by doing something that you as a person believes needs to be done, in a way that you are happy with the results. One can grow as a person by taking harder challenges, and sometimes, that means working for the man. But you can also pursue your own interests off the clock and grow as a person and use the corporate salary to fund that growth.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:47AM (2 children)
> My drive is to be comfortable and enjoy luxury and not having to work when I don't want to work
which is the "otium" of the Romans. Much more natural than the current competition to outshine others, which often leads to good side effects but in general should not be an obsession.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:54AM (1 child)
And BTW, "nec-otium" the negative of otium, from which your term "negotiate" comes, was used to denote business activity (store is still called negozio around here). But, even your "business" has a negative connotation. Business comes from busy, and what is the opposite of busy? Free.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday July 30 2017, @02:56PM
You're saying that people are working to look better than someone else?
I would have thought that was a side effect of wanting more money or power.
(Unless, of course, it's an arch-enemy--then I would devote innumerous resources to plotting that individual's demise--perhaps to my own ruin. But, of course, my resources are limited and it may just be limited to staircase wit.)
As N1 recently stated, "hard work is its own reward."
That is certainly true of the employers and the motivational posters I have seen. I know few actual people, that work for an employer and not in it for themselves, that see it that way unless it is for something they already enjoy (in or outside of work).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 14 2017, @11:16PM (6 children)
Which moral systems have that property? The problem is that moral systems are arbitrary. For example, there is a moral system where everything I do is the absolutely rightest thing to do at the time I do it (merely by defining it that way). Switch the sign and we get a moral system where I'm doing the absolutely wrongest things instead.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @06:42AM (5 children)
> Which moral systems have that property? The problem is that moral systems are arbitrary.
I am fully aware of that (even if toxic systems will seldom be labeled moral it is not our concern now), but if you read you will notice the phrase will work for any moral system. You can be damned for eternity according to one system, yet your value to society will approach zero nonetheless. You are going to build on sand, or stone?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 16 2017, @08:39AM (4 children)
What stone? It's common to see behavior that has greater harm than benefit for the very people it is supposed to help yet the behavior is advocated on the basis of it being "moral".
For example, sacrificing one's time and effort for some slight alleged environmental benefit while ignoring that the environmental costs of the sacrifice are higher than the benefit to be gained. A considerable bit of recycling and pathological resource optimization falls in that category. Or advocating the creation of some public program or good that causes more problems for everyone than it fixes (a fair bit of the "War on Drugs" is worse for everyone who supposedly is being protected than the recreational drugs would be). Or the nutcases who advocate for the end of corporations and subsequent massive economic disaster because someone, years back, wrote a book that completely mischaracterized corporate personhood.
Sure, moral systems can provide some hypothetical, purely imaginary value beyond time, but that's completely worthless to us who so happen to be constrained by time. Instead, it is the value to us and our fellow travelers in the now which make moral systems worthwhile to anyone you know. Let's consider what else you wrote in that early post:
Notice the word, "self" in "self actualization". It is inherently determined from the point of view of the person undergoing the actualization. Nor is it commonly used [google.com] by the media. I get 16,700 hits on my Google News search in the previous sentence (this includes variants like "self-actualizing"). A corresponding search [google.com] for "free", a widely abused word, gets 130 million hits, "moral" [google.com] gets 20 million hits.
My view is that if self actualization and its variants really were used for propaganda, then you'd see the words in the propaganda. And what sort of moral system doesn't encourage people to better themselves?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 17 2017, @03:43PM (1 child)
> Sure, moral systems can provide some hypothetical, purely imaginary value beyond time
your perspective is utilitarian, I was saying something else. Moral systems are abstractions, beyond time. Moral choices are often to one's detriment. It's like playing videogames. You just fiddle with the keyboard. But when you win the championship you will have been champion even after the universe dies. IMAGINARY IS NOT ABSTRACT.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:23AM
So what? There are an infinite number of moral systems and for each system, I can come up with its complete opposite just by flipping the sign and making good to bad and vice versa. Further, I can trivially come up with moral systems where I automatically am perfectly moral and hence, automatically win that championship (nothing but net!). What makes any of them worth speaking of? The answer is that some moral systems are useful, that is, they have value from the utilitarian perspective.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 17 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
> then you'd see the words in the propaganda
BTW this is not the 50s magazines. Propaganda is smarter than that.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:17AM
Not smart enough to create propaganda around words that it never uses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 15 2017, @02:29AM (1 child)
Isaac Newton's value to society endures.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday July 16 2017, @07:06AM
No, his ideas maybe. Else we can argue about (godwin's in one) Hitler as the true father of the Israel state. One can even argue it is not unintended consequence, because he did not remotely implement the correct way of performing a genocide, the Armenian one, which German officials did witness firsthand as WWI allies of the Turks.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by Rich26189 on Saturday July 15 2017, @01:55PM
I glanced at the article’s title and dove into the comments not even reading the TFS. Because the words ‘biological’, ‘driver’ and ‘behind’ had stood out in my mind and I mentally inserted the words ‘the wheel’ thinking this was going to be an ‘anti-self driving car’ article - I was hoping some study had shown that we biologicals need to drive our own cars to be fulfilled. I was a little disappointed when it turned out not to be so but reading the comments I was enlightened. Well, I’ve had my morning cups o’ Joe and will live longer.