What would you say is man's greatest fear?

Not knowing the Unknown....

all that we cant control????

ps

I'm going to have to go with "the unknown."

The cases in point:

death

religion

philosophy

science

conspiracy theories

Or maybe it's really the lack of meaning, significance and purpose in the universe that we fear most, which is why the examples above exist in the first place.

There are a number of people here saying man's greatest fear is "the unknown."

Consider, would people fear the unknown if all consequence was positive? Obviously not because the result would be beneficial. So when people say they fear the unknown what they're really saying is they fear new things because it might bring with it negative consequence.

This is tautological in nature.

What do people fear - bad things. What causes bad things - things I can't prepare against. So fear of the unknown is a composite. It's a fear of some unknown negative consequence (which is implied by fear) and it's primarily a fear of the inability to employ choice or self-given direction to avert that negative consequence.

Originally posted by pantherstar
all that we cant control????

If you could control all things would anything have meaning?

Imagine going up to a person and saying, "You will love me" and having it happen. Now imagine this was true of everything and anything you say. All words you decree happen.

After a time there would be a sort of horror and loneliness in knowing all things are simply puppets that dance at your whim. That there's nothing in reality that can independently care or love you for who you are or what you create.

Imagine the sheer loneliness.

Now imagine giving something a soul. Something that can choose of its own volition. If you're still all powerful and you could affect any outcome without any consequence, would any of your actions have meaning to that other individual, other than fear of you?

So to experience something as "good," all things must be separated in to a minimum of two constituent pieces. Where all choices must have a consequence (good, bad or something in between), otherwise there is no way to appreciate the outcome or for anything to implicitly have meaning.

[edit on 30-10-2009 by Xtraeme]

In general...suffering.(sorry for the short reply, but...)

himself, direct question, direct answer

second line

c.

Originally posted by Xtraeme
What do people fear - bad things. What causes bad things - things I can't prepare against. So fear of the unknown is a composite. It's a fear of some unknown negative consequence (which is implied by fear) and it's primarily a fear of the inability to employ choice or self-given direction to avert that negative consequence.

So you're saying human's greatest fear is "negative consequences"? Of course we fear pain and suffering (negative consequences) but that's hardly a specific answer to the original poster's question. All animals fear pain as a part of the survival instinct, and I assume the original poster was asking for a fear specific to humanity and not the entire animal kingdom.

BTW I hereby formally revise my answer to the original poster's question as: "being dead as a mofo."

Fear of "nothing" once you are "nothing" then you are truly afraid!! but thats what we all want eventually is to become "nothingness" some just get there faster than others. wheres that sword i was shown a few ages back guarding the trees of life?

Originally posted by obscenegrace
So you're saying human's greatest fear is "negative consequences"? Of course we fear pain and suffering (negative consequences) but that's hardly a specific answer to the original poster's question. All animals fear pain as a part of the survival instinct, and I assume the original poster was asking for a fear specific to humanity and not the entire animal kingdom.

I spelled out explicitly mans greatest fears. Our fears are four-pronged, sharing a common base of negative consequence.

My last post, which you referenced, was simply to show that fear of the unknown is code for saying fear of "negative consequence," which is tautological as you note, and is more a reflection on our inability to affect the outcome of something we're unprepared for (ie/ lack of choice).

Put another way "aversion to negative consequence" provides an ontological understanding of what "fear" is in the abstract and what it encapsulates across all of time and space.

i would say mans greatest fear is not having an heir to keep his name going on

hmm well i have a couple guesses, i think man is affraid of expectation,
a second guess is consequence. i also believe man fears contact with outside beings not of this world.

a lot of inncorect answers i feel haha. the fear of the unknown, the fear of failure, the fear of becoming forgotten.... all these things i would chose as aposed to having to face an angry hungry mother grizzly bear with no weapons and naked on live telivision... thats all kinds of scary right there

reply to post by Conclusion



Man's greatest fear is to lose the ability of being a MAN!

The man greatest fear is himself. He is the one who take decision for his health, school, job and familly. All our life is a question of choice. Good choice or bad choice are made by us.... Not the faith or chance... Our life is all rule by the choice we made.

The unknown

2nd line.


[edit on 24-11-2009 by SimpleKnowledge]

Have not gone through all the posts...but I can only go along the lines of...
The only thing to fear, is fear itself. Once that creeps in, anything can be your greatest fear.

Originally posted by Valombre
The man greatest fear is himself. He is the one who take decision for his health, school, job and familly. All our life is a question of choice. Good choice or bad choice are made by us.... Not the faith or chance... Our life is all rule by the choice we made.

im not afraid of myself... i make good decisions
umm...2nd line

Originally posted by SimpleKnowledge
The unknown anything and everything.

2nd line.

so you get a choice.. a choice between a hungry angry irritated lion who is known to torture its pray and eat them alive. your next choice is unknown, it could be anything. pinaples in your bum or maybe a dream vacation... anything. i know i would chose the unknown