Hmm...
Alright. I'll bite one more time, and leave the last word to you (unless you would like to proceed further than that). I'm enticed enough by the topic to engage in a more intricate and complex discussion.
I still disagree, both on the claim that human nature is not stagnant and on the examples you gave to dispute this claim. For example, a soldier cannot be taught to break empathy
Yes they can. A human can be taught to break their natural compulsion. Most people find killing their own species repulsive or repugnant, but given the right circumstances or the right training and they can
break that compulsion.
If you can be taught to overcome one of mankind's strongest impulses, then it is not immutable. It
can be changed. That is the point of the example. Soldiers don't stop feeling empathy, they simply learn how to overcome it as a necessity of their job.
the vast majority of the violent regimes, such as Nazi Germany, Iran, and Al Qaeda, indoctrinates their members by abusing human capability to feel empathy rather than breaking it altogether.
#1: Nazi Germany already had a military force prior to the rise of the regime, which formed the backbone of its army after it decided to ramp up its military industrial complex in the post-construction period.
#2: Iran is an odd example to use here. Its military structure is really no different from most of the world save perhaps in funding and application of discipline.
#3: Al Qaeda is not an organized military and does not use organized training for its soldiers, thus why I didn't use it as an example of a military state achieving a change in human behaviour. That being said, yes--indoctrination is a fine example of modifying human nature to reflect more what you wish it to be. Indoctrination also doesn't have to be achieved through merciless abuse and trauma, it can be achieved through far more sanguine means. Just ask
Jim Jones.
They cannot change the fundamental nature of humans. I don't think that the fact that we have seen so many changes can be reliably used as an evidence that human nature is not stagnant either, since there are so many other factors that are in play.
Exactly. There are many other factors in play that are changing how a person behaves and reacts. Other factors that are more powerful than whatever conceivable default nature we possess. The individual is more powerful than their nature, unless they are damaged. Ergo, why we are capable of such rapid changes where other species remain the same generation after generation.
However, I do agree that individuals can rise above their own nature.
If one individual can rise above their nature, so can any other. "Human Nature" is genetic, and if it's possible for one, as a rule, it's possible for all. I will however grant you that the likelihood of someone rising above their nature is dependent on their environmental stimuli and their educational background. Ergo why our development as a species was so painfully slow during the dark ages, yet it's so incredibly fast now.
Now, going back to the idea of immortality... I do believe that people change over time, but I think this is because their lives are finite. As people grow older, they tend to change less, and it wouldn't be unrealistic to imagine that a human being that lives forever to eventually become a "fixed point". While humans can learn new tricks even in an old age, they won't accept any more new ideals and believe it wholeheartedly... and if a mortal human being who have only lived around 100 years can become so rigid over such a short period of time, can we be certain that an immortal human would be able to change at all in a drastic way, even with all the time in the universe?
I'd actually argue the opposite, though this is less based in science and more based in philosophy, so...
END: FACT.
START: OPINION.
I'd actually argue the opposite position. The reason most people become so grounded in their positions as they grow older is because they wish to feel more and more secure about their perceptions of reality as it slips away from them. The more time they invest in a belief, the more valuable that time becomes--because if you spend six months being wrong about something, that's hard to swallow, but okay. If you spend sixty
years wrong about something, that's your entire life down the toilet. All of your accomplishments will be for naught. Whereas if you don't have the specter of death looming over you, you're more accepting of failure, or mistakes, or wasted time. You aren't panicking about the end coming to you, so you take less shortcuts, you enjoy life a little more.
There's a reason why youth tend to be greater risk takers than the elderly, and it doesn't just have to do with experience. It has to do with the fact that youth are more likely to survive, and if they make a mistake, they have an easier time starting over.
Every religion we've invented in this world exists to give us a solemn desire and belief that we can do something to extend our lives beyond their natural end. Whether you believe in reincarnation, or an afterlife, or the eternal soul, or so on.
Whether or not immortality is appropriate or desirable is irrelevant to the fact that we will seek it. Because the three pillars of our biological desires include survival chief among them. When we have achieved it in such a way that it is no longer a real concern, we will begin to flourish. When man discovered fire, and the wheel, and began to create agrarian societies, civilizations began to sprout, and ideas to be thought of and spread. Ironically, you can actually correlate the development of our species to the level of education and to how long we live.
The longer we live as a species, correlates to the speed at which we develop as a species. Because the longer you have to live, and the more secure you are where you live, the more likely you are to feel brazen enough to try (or even simply
entertain) an idea that is foreign, or alien.
