Society's standards and expectations

We, as humans, have chosen 'leaders' to govern us and lead us. Society's expectations are a bit high these days, as well as their standards. Something I've always pondered about, which is, if humans has a set of 'rules' or standards to be followed, how can humans evolve and learn?

Put it this way, if the routine is to:

Eat breakfast -> Go to work -> Take a break and eat lunch -> Go home -> Eat Dinner -> Sleep

And assuming this is daily, how do we humans tend to do anything out of the ordinary? We're always doing the same things over and over, work to make money, money is used to 'survive'.

If society has a conformity so that every individual has to follow a strict set of rules, how do we change?

I've heard two sayings:

1) Rules are meant to be followed
2) Rules are meant to be broken

What's the borderline here? In order to change and progress, do humans break rules? Such as scientists 'cloning' and what not.

Well, the answer to your question is going to be extremely different person to person, depending on their views and beliefs, i.e. take two people, one would say break the rules to clone humans for medical purposes while one would say follow the rules and don't clone humans, regardless of its intentions.
But nothing ever happens without taking risks. And risks typically involve breaking the rules.

That's a good question, hun.

Well, inside our society, there isn't a lot of changes. Slow ones, mostly. But what made our society change is because of the environment around us. It constantly changes along with us. It's like an interdependance. For example, the global warming, without it, we wouldn't be trying to develop new technology and test all sort of things. Yet, without global warming, we wouldn't be evolving and changing our technology.

There's one thing that will always keep us on the road and hope for changes. We, humans, are just curious creatures. We love to seek for what we don't know. That's why we keep evolving, yet at a slow pace.

[color="#cc8899"]There comes a point where theory cannot take you any farther, and direct demonstration or experimentation must be done. Considering that most modern knowledge branches have reached an impass where they cannot be furthered without dangerous, cruel, or amoral acts, or any combination of the three, it takes the direct intervention of a dedicated or insane (possibly both, possibly synonyms for each other) person. Basically, we have reached a point where a critical decision must be reached. The options, as I see it, are as follows -

1. Stagnate with what we know, but remain safe, moral, and good
2. Breach the wall that seperates us from demons, and continue experimenting, venturing ever farther into hell in the pursuit of knowledge.

Here the story of Adam and Eve in the garden is being retold every day - do we accept the good that we have in life, or do we do what we believe or know to be wrong or evil in order to gain a greater knowledge of our world and existence?

I personally am a believer in the 2nd option. While regrettably amoral, the potential to learn and to grow...it fascinates me. I am extremely...curious isn't the right word here...but I can't even fathom what we could learn if we abandoned our system of morals and values...[/COLOR]

I agree with your post, sometimes, we have to go out of our 'standards' zone and do things, take risks, and try new things, though albeit, some things will be immorral, however, it could lead to mankind's betterment. I also wondered if there's such of a thing as knowing too much, or the dangers of curiosity. We won't really know an exact answer, so only time will tell, I suppose?

I agree with your post, sometimes, we have to go out of our 'standards' zone and do things, take risks, and try new things, though albeit, some things will be immorral, however, it could lead to mankind's betterment. I also wondered if there's such of a thing as knowing too much, or the dangers of curiosity. We won't really know an exact answer, so only time will tell, I suppose?

[color="#cc8899"]Indeed. It's kindof scary to know that bettering ourselves seems to require something so drastic as what I described, but that's honestly how I feel. We're almost dependent on a madman too obsessed with discovery to do something chaotic, and then simply take the oppurtunity to say "Well, what's done is done, may as well learn from it"

Of course, there's always the danger of dooming mankind. But if that's how we must meet our end, so be it. I'd rather go out learning and doing than stagnating.[/COLOR]

I read in a book that was fictional about Ragnarok in the times of Norsemen, that Change is born from Chaos. Throughout the book, the idea that Evil is one force and Good is another, that there must be a champion for both of these forces. In the end, the "Champion" was a single man, who, by a mental disability, was able to wield both Evil and Good.

For me, the only way for the world to progress is the removal of things that prohibit the advancement. There are easily a number of things that can be listed for that, but an easy one, that probably wont be removed any time soon if at all, is religion. Religion absolutely rejects (except for some) the views of other religions, thus stopping them from learning from one another. If you remove religion, the ideals put forth by them would still exist, but instead of it being "good for your soul" it would just be "good for humans (or humanity)."

So in all, I believe that Chaos brings Change and advancement, disorder and destruction can bring about new things, new ways of thinking that would allow for further advancement.

I read in a book that was fictional about Ragnarok in the times of Norsemen, that Change is born from Chaos. Throughout the book, the idea that Evil is one force and Good is another, that there must be a champion for both of these forces. In the end, the "Champion" was a single man, who, by a mental disability, was able to wield both Evil and Good.

For me, the only way for the world to progress is the removal of things that prohibit the advancement. There are easily a number of things that can be listed for that, but an easy one, that probably wont be removed any time soon if at all, is religion. Religion absolutely rejects (except for some) the views of other religions, thus stopping them from learning from one another. If you remove religion, the ideals put forth by them would still exist, but instead of it being "good for your soul" it would just be "good for humans (or humanity)."

So in all, I believe that Chaos brings Change and advancement, disorder and destruction can bring about new things, new ways of thinking that would allow for further advancement.

So burn a church today!

OK, stupid-idea-that-will-get-you-shot aside, this is true.
As for me, the line between breaking rules and following them is common sense and individuality. Those that are too much of a coward to, say, save someone they know is good but the law hunts, and those that are pricks that break every rule and get themselves killed via stupidity, are both on the radical side. It's truly finding the right balance for you that makes you an individual. Without individuality, we shall never evolve.

I'd prefer to think of rules, more along the lines of guidelines. Everything we know (scientifically) is a guideline, and we can't make it real until we try and break that guideline. Once we break a guideline, then we learn new things. So to sum it up, "Rules are meant to be broken" is a great quote, and should be used in most circumstances.

I don't think following and breaking the rules necessarily have to be contradictory processes. I think rules serve as a good foundation, a starting point, and can be molded (and evolve) as necessary with changing times, society, perceptions, etc.

Generally rules should have a basis for their existence so there should be some logical reason they exist in the first place, but that basis may eventually be proven to be out-of-date or downright wrong for certain situations. And that is when rules should change.

Even with your example of eating habits, I wonder how many people really follow that schedule consistently (I certainly don't). And new research has suggested that it is in fact healthier to eat more small meals during your day instead of keeping yourself on your daily three. Perhaps it's a good starting point to reinforce that people should eat regularly and generally at the same time during their day, but it is not a rule you must follow to the letter.

As with laws regarding "cloning", who are the people who make these laws? They are politicians. Do they have adequate scientific knowledge to make fair and reasonable laws regarding a topic they know little about? Do they truly understand the real advantages and disadvantages that cloning offers? To what value do scientists give these set of rules when there is little scientific basis to them?

I guess that means therefore that there are good and bad rules. It is then up to the individual to decide which rules are worth following. So yes while it is important to "follow the rules" to a certain extent in which they are useful to be followed, you do have to "break the rules" when there is really no value in following them. This "pick and choose" approach only really works if people truly understand the intent and basis of a set of rules, and not treat them as merely a mindless list of things to do and not to do.

Conformity is crap. If everyone's doing the same routine, you won't end up anywhere different from where you started, which inhibits growth completely. Consider that most rules have punishments, if you figure out that the result of breaking that rule would be much better than leaving it be, and suffer the consequences, wouldn't you break the rule? The line is drawn on an individual's intuition, where one believes that they are truly right despite any rule or commonly known beliefs that society holds. With conformity, everyone would follow the rules, everyone would stay safe, everyone would lead the same boring lifestyle and end up where people before them have.

We change and advance by ignoring the rules, and pushing the limits so that humanity as a whole can advance (unfortunately, most people are so biased towards their own views they are unlikely to consider other perspectives leaving us where we start). But, this is what separates conformity from greatness, those who are willing to push the limits despite any obstacle in their path. Some have it easy, some have it hard, but their contribution is the same nevertheless.

To sum it up: When people actually think, rules don't matter.

I agree with your post, sometimes, we have to go out of our 'standards' zone and do things, take risks, and try new things, though albeit, some things will be immorral, however, it could lead to mankind's betterment. I also wondered if there's such of a thing as knowing too much, or the dangers of curiosity. We won't really know an exact answer, so only time will tell, I suppose?

A bit off topic but, that's why I love Fringe.

Things right now are tooooo messed up like to do neither of those two.
Society standars and expectations of succes and failure are the same, if you follow the rules youre just doing what everyone expects, if you dont follow those youre just breaking those rules and someone was expecting that to happen too.

If we were to learn and evolve, we would have sooo much more liberty, oportunities and choices; other than working forever, starving or being in jail for the rest of your life. Somehow those three options lead to the same end: a long wasted time with routines that only stop when you die.

If we supposedly learnt and evolved we wouldnt be doing the same things over and over again. And I dont mean working->eating->working->eating->sleeping->working. I mean killing ourselfs just because of a stupid thing such as religion, letting people rob us because their job is "much more important", paying for nothing or getting payed for nothing, let people starve even in big cities. Heck, is our education really that bad or are we that stupid not to notice? But once again...ignorance is blissu___u.

As for your question, I would like to think theres a way not to do any of those without beign a hermit and actually be a part of society contributing and enjoying it. I wish there was a way not to follow most rules, without breaking them and thats where I would learn, evolve and grow up.

Kas -- you're missing the point. The process you're talking about is not what shapes society.

Culture is not defined or redefined by regular individuals, but rather by EXCEPTIONAL individuals, especially exceptional artists. For example, take clothing. You have someone like George Armani pulling the strings behind the scenes, and then you get shops full of Abecrombie and Fitch (or whatever) models wearing clothing, and the general public assumes that is "awesome" and buys it. Fashions are not lasting like cultural development, but there is a fairly small number of influential individuals in teh background shaping them for a long time; same goes for other things.

Painting, poetry, literature, music -- these things are defined by exceptional artists. Some mediocre band did not define modern music, it was the Beatles, Elvis, U2, etc. These people do have a "routine" for life, getting up, eating, doing stuff and going to sleep, but while they are doing things they have a disproportionate influence on the rest of us. With some truly exceptional minds, such as Einstein, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Homer, and Mozart, they had not just temporary and substantial influence on their own societies, but rather permanent and indelible influence on the future as well.

Most "regular" people take these people's inventions and use them and remember them in their everyday mundane life. If Mozart's music was not listened to by "regular" people, nobody would remember Mozart anymore. But if it wasn't for Mozart and people like him, our existence would be far more drab and lifeless.