Procreation: Reasons for?

No, just that the abstract concept of survival is not a motivator. Animals can make considered choices and solve problems, and it's not merely robotic.

No, people get hungry because of the direct feedback effects of hypoglycemia, decreased effective circulating volume, leptins, and decreased gastric distension on the brain. "The body wants to survive"? The body doesn't WANT anything.

Guess why that is? It's because the behaviors and processes that allow survival are the ones that evolution preserves.

Throw 100 cows and 100 tuna into the ocean, and the tuna will survive. It's not because the tuna or their bodies "want" to survive any more than the cows. It's because they can.

Ask the OP -- he's the one who is concerned about it. I think we love our lives

some people who are not able to bear life's pain, or bear what they perceive as lack of meaning. Many of them die -- not necessarily from suicide, but from self-neglect (I KNOW you'll agree with this -- because you're very articulate about how people should care for themselves).

Is this the long way of saying that people need food to live?

Evolution? Is this a process or a thing? I thought humans keep themselves alive.

Nope. They both want to survive. Unfortunately, for the cows, you interfered and killed them by forcing them in the ocean. Too bad for them. I feel sorry that they were part of this ugly experiment.

Well, this is an interesting thought. We love to live. Sounds like a survival instinct to me.

What is love and what is instinct, and we are home free.

has anyone ever talked to a survivor of suicide?

People need food to live -- THEREFORE the biological mechanisms that induce hunger and food-seeking are preserved through evolution.

When you say that a baby cries from hunger (I paraphrase) in order to survive, you have it backwards!!

Don't go off on tangets to avoid the point. It could just as easily be a natural disaster that differentially favors different organisms. An apple tree doesn't "want to survive" any more or less than does seaweed.

You already answered instinct. You provided the definition. And we don't need to "define" love, unless you have some unorthodox conception of it.

There are a lot of unsuccessful suicide attempts. Whether one lives or dies is immaterial to the fact that first they have made the decision to die. I've talked to hundreds of such people, because I take care of them in the hospital.

Consciousness wants to survive

So you talk to people who have successfully committed suicide and know that they made a decision to die?

In some cases. But we're talking about BODIES and INSTINCTS, NOT about consciousness.

And not every signal sent out by the brain is part of consciousness.

They have attempted suicide with the intent of dying. It so happens that they survived the attempt.

Nor do I eat in order that I may attain the nutrients my body needs, not consciously.

Instincts are nothing more than conscious memory.

it is "trying to survive" and sending signals.

The physical brain, which I view is a manifestation of consciousness (mind), is a conduit for a signal. I do not see it as the source.

Instincts are neither memory nor conscious.

It is sending signals in mechanistic response to stimuli. This is known down to the receptor in many cases. This is probably the best understood aspect of all neurophysiology.

Well, fine for you to have that view. But it's directly contradictory to the understanding of the brain garnered by science.

And were it not for science, you wouldn't even be aware that we have "signals".

So you're picking and choosing aspects of physiology to suit an unsupported belief you hold about consciousness. It's a matter of faith and I'm not going to go to great lengths to try and convince you otherwise --

but you should be aware that your view is contradictory to any empirically garnered understanding of how the brain works. Hope you're ok with that.

Camus suggested all of life may be absurd. And I believe it may be absurd unless one builds a spiritual component to life, that transcends a single physical life.

For me, birth/death is a continuing cycle of exploration and learning and procreation is nature's way of evolving, creating, and observing itself.

Rich

That is, if you like, nature's reason.

What I'm interested in is, what is your reason? The thinking, conscious person's reason, not THE reason.

The main thing is that I am healthy - mostly because I don't bother with any of these scientific beliefs.

So would you say that 100% of people who "don't bother with any of these scientific beliefs" are as healthy as you are? It so happens that I met someone who professed the same yesterday when I admitted him to the hospital with unstable angina.

Okay, let's try a different approach:

My thoughts here have been met with pretty much blanket resistance, same old same old, but as yet, nobody has actually put forth a convincing argument, as per the OP.

So, those of you that have answered so far (or others if interested, in fact), what were your actual reasons for procreating? Some previous posts have mentioned "propagation of the species", but I know that was pretty far from your minds at the time. "We must have children dear, otherwise the species will be in grave peril; there's only 7 billion of them left!" So, if anyone would oblige, let's hear your honest reasoning on the matter.

Just to get the above quote back to the most recent post.

Would any parents care to disclose their reasoning behind their procreation?

Reason for #1: because condoms were too time consuming during a really hot throw down.

Reason for #2: because we could afford it and didn't want to raise an only child.

Its only relatively selfish, especially if we are of a Multiply and Replenish the Earth faith. Then it would be selfish that we only have two.