OK, I can go along with your dislike of the word “Ideal”. Let’s replace it with “optimum” then. Does a human strive to reduce his requirements for survival to minimize pain, or does he work at building an optimum life, even if it involves effort and pain? It seems also, that you have confidence that evolved human beings can avoid pain altogether by convincing ourselves it doesn’t really hurt.
: I would define "need" as anything a being must have over the course of a lifetime to stay alive. Water, air, food, etc thus would all be human needs, not wants.
I asked about your definition of need, whether the optimum life extends past 72 hours. I see you have extended need to include a “lifetime”. Is longevity included in your view of needs? Your list of minimalist requirements result in shortened lifetimes.
The United Nations has been developing indicators of human development to track the world’s progress. Their approach is optimum rather than minimalist. From their site,
The basic purpose of development is to enlarge people's choices. In principle, these choices can be infinite and can change over time. People often value achievements that do not show up at all, or not immediately, in income or growth figures: greater access to knowledge, better nutrition and health services, more secure livelihoods, security against crime and physical violence, satisfying leisure hours, political and cultural freedoms and sense of participation in community activities. The objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives."
Mahbub ul Haq
http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/
Do you see how your minimalist approach would lead to a deprived and shortened life?
:far from making a blanket statement that all humans need love to function at all
I haven’t said that, I am pretty sure. I am refuting your statement that love is not a human need. All I have to argue is that love is a human need by broadening the definition of need. I maintain a need is more than the minimum. Humans need to reach for the optimum because the alternative is a devastating loss of potential, a wasted life.
:extrapolating to adult needs from baby needs was not good
You said this but didn’t prove it. All you stated is that babies goo instead of talk. Does that necessarily mean that their development is insignificant, or that their needs don’t speak to the hard-wired needs embedded in all of us?
:benefit form social interaction and love. I simply stated they are not completely necessary for survival or even minimal enjoyment.
According to your personal view of minimalist requirements as needs that may be true. But I maintain the minimalist approach is wrong. Human needs are broader if our goal is an optimum life. Lack of love shortens human life.
:don't consider it an absolute necessity since we have other highly evolved capacities, in particular the capacity to think about our thinking and philosophize.
My instinct is telling me this is a dead end. But I’ll have to think harder as to why. From my own experience, my thinking alone gets me in to trouble. My mind can justify a cruelty or lead me to bad judgement. That marvellously complex brain that can be so useful at time can also deceive itself in to a cognitive dissonance loop.
I am much better off when I translate my thinking in to acts of creation. I can then observe the result, confirming whether my approach is effective or not. Observation cures me of my own folly.
So again, a mind alone can consider itself perfect, until it has to interact with another mind. The resulting conflict if handled well, can result in a meeting of minds. There’s that social interaction and connection again, creating more optimum experience.
:...still cannot extrapolate from [Fish and horses] to humans.
From fish to horses is a huge evolutionary leap. Fins are dropped and cud and hoof are built. It’s not nearly as much a leap from horses to gibbons and monkeys. And as I am sure you will agree, it is a tiny jump from primate to human. There’s not a single primate that lives alone as the snail. I’d say it’s a safe bet that we are included in the animal group that requires social interaction to survive.
:The act of rejection is actually neutral
I imagine this would be true if we were minds alone. Like that Star Trek episode where the tubed brains sit nourished under glass. But we’re not. Rejection is decidedly physical, as it includes the deprivation of touch and eye contact and all kinds of subtle visual cues that tells the victim they are no longer welcome.
:Frankl, well, he said a lot of poetic things
Ad Hominem. Don’t use him to support his argument then turn around and dump him when it doesn’t suit. The whole point of Frankl’s lessons in the prison camp is that people rise above minimum requirements. The people who survived and thrived lived to higher ideals, a dream, a goal, something that transcended the reality. An optimum life, if you will, of love and little kindnesses. And I would disagree with the “poetic” assessment of Frankl. I am sure he chose his words well.
I don’t think you will find happiness, simplicity, or uncomplication logansrun, from trimming your life to the minimum. I suspect rather that we as human beings are our best when we reach for optimum experience. If there’s a relationship worth salvaging, do it. Plant seeds in the spring.
