shadow_Fox81 said:
Biological imperitives seem to cause humanity a great deal of hassle. So if we didn't need them would you abandon them or do these very basic biological needs make us human.
primarily i'm concerned with food but why draw the line there sex, oxygen, reproduction, pain and i guess even self preservation are all fair game.
do they hold us back or do they remind us consequence matters.
would you miss any of them, if you didn't need breath would you still want fresh air.
(and for the sake of intrigue we would still procreate but without any physicality, that way you don't feel bad about the continuation of the species)
If we never have to eat, if in the future for instance tiny nanobots circulated our bodies and brought us all the sustenance chemicals we need, I reckon I would still eat food (if I can afford it, it might have become a luxury, you never know) just not as often.
I love food, I love cooking, I love eating with my friends, the act of sharing a meal is an intrinsic psychological impulse for us humans, it bonds us together, and it wont disappear just because it's not vital for our survival anymore.
Shit, half of my daily caloric intake is not vital for my survival, some is even harmful.
But I do it anyway, because of the culture I'm living in, a culture for which three meals a day are the norm.
If in the future our sustenance can be guaranteed, without us directly providing calories from food, eating will not disappear.
Probably few will eat three times a day when not needed, however what I think will remain unchanged are the business lunches, the restaurants, cooking for your date and the holiday meals.
All the food related social activities.
Fast food joints will probably disappear for good, and the intake of food might become highly ritualistic in some cultures, but I can hardly see it disappearing all together.
It's the caveman principle, it's the inability to accurately predict how much a new technological change will affect society and our behavior.
No matter how large the change is, we're still behaving under the same impulses and urges as our ancestors - the cavemen.
For instance in the 19th Century, soon after the invention and production of the telephone, many people bewailed the death of face-to-face communication and the advent of "peopleless cities", where all communication would be done by the telephones, and people will prefer talking to people's invisible voices instead, solely because of convenience.
We can clearly see, why this wasnt so, although the phone is incredibly useful and cheap technology it doesn't fulfil all our primal desires and needs from our communication.
It's because our apelike ancestors, before they developed speech, used body language almost exclusively to convey their thoughts and emotions.
And so by watching people up close, we not only feel a common bond but can also read their subtle body language gaining valuable unconscious information about what thoughts are racing through their heads.
As obvious as it is to us, it wasn't so obvious to people when the new technology was being introduced, that it can't possibly change this and lead to such a great paradigm shift.
The point is: whenever there is a conflict between modern technology and the desires of our primitive ancestors, these primitive desires will win each time.
That's the Cave Man Principle.
If you eliminate food for our survival this will not eliminate food from our life.
