What is necessity, alone? Can something truly be required? Is absolute necessity possible? First, let's define: The requirement of one or more concepts. Second, let's expound: Necessity cannot occur without relation. It is entirely possible for any concept to result in the unnecessary outcome, regardless of the parameters, environment, and variables of the situation. However, with the limiting relation, necessity is plausible. For example, eating is not necessary. However, eating IS necessary relative to basic survival. It is possible for somebody to be forced not to eat, thus proving it is not necessary in the absolute form, but one can assume the deprived will die, supporting the necessity relative to basic survival. Third, let's conclude: Absolute necessity is not possible, nor plausible. Any arguments? Supporting ideas? Concepts or theories that relate? Did this help structure your use of the word "need"? NOTE: It pisses me off when people say they need things... for example: "BUT I NEED IT!"
In my opinion, you are mixing need with necessity. food is something we need in order to stay alive, there is no changing that, you can force a human to not eat but you cant force a lion to stop eating unless you tie it to a tree or else he will just keep eating because he needs to. Now necessity is just the uncontrollable desire to obtain something you don't ultimately need but you require it in order to satisfy the feeling of necessity.
You can force a human to not eat but you cannot force him/her to not need food. I am not sure to understand the point of this topic though. Necessity is what you need, isn't it? Then I take it there are different levels of needs: physical, psychological, social etc... If you do not die stopping to satisfy some necessity, I assume this necessity is not an absolute necessity in your life, but is your life only medical? You can be fully healthy, technically, and still feel totally dead inside, useless, like a ghost... Our lives are not only a matter of our heart beating, our blood flowing in our veins, our stomach to fill etc, it is also a matter of feelings, of self-esteem and of accomplishements. If I put your in a jail and I tell you you will stay here until the end of your life, never to see anybody else again that me, never be able to enjoy anything else you used to do, and I tell all your relatives that you do not exist anymore, and that they can stop thinking about you, while I will keep you fully medically healthy, by feeding you, healing you if necessary, heating and cleaning the room if necessary etc, everything you need to just live like an animal, will you still feel really alive? What about liberty? Art? Belief? Friends? Family? What do you really need to feel alive? What do you really need to feel happy?
if air/oxygen isn't a necessity then you can force yourself not to breathe although your mind can do that your body wont let you, thus, even if you hold your breath you can't hold it forever because your body will force you to breathe so my point is, necessity is something you are FORCED to take, be it physically or mentally
Necessity ultimately comes down to whether or not it is necessary for the universe to exist, since all necessities stem from that idea. Consumption of food is necessary for the individual to keep his perspective of the universe around him or her. But that perspective doesn't (we assume?) alter the fact of whether or not the universe exists. Everything requires something else to exist for it to exist. Therefore there is a necessity and that is for there to be more than one kind of matter(?) in the universe. Or indeed for there to be just one type of matter which makes up the rest, such as atoms but on a much smaller level. If we are made up of more than one thing- The absolute necessity is for those things to exist If we are made up of just one thing -The absolute necessity is for it to exist Of course this is only if it is deemed necessary for the universe (Everything, including extra dimensions etc etc) to exist. But anything beyond that is just a question of faith so its not possible to discuss.
Zerodown: Necessity comes from the word necessary, which comes from the word need, which means to recognize a necessity. I'm not confusing words, I'm just assuming that they are one and the same. Jissé: I think you may have missed the point. The truth is that you cannot force somebody to not need food RELATIVE TO SURVIVING. But you can force somebody to not need food, without any relation to an outside concept. Ursawarrior: You are assuming there is nobody around to "force" you to stop breathing. Since your body is forcing you to breathe, and the other is forcing you to not breathe, we get conflicting necessities. Does this mean we can assume seperate necessities have different strengths? By extension, if the other manages to suffocate you, does this mean his strength-necessity was stronger than your life-necessity? That the other's simple muscle power was greater than your entire life? Remember that both of these necessities are relative to your survival, ie, your life. marinefreak: The necessity for a need to be relative to a concept, relative to being plausible does not need a universe to exist, relative to being true. You are assuming all necessities are of matter, and not of concept. However, if we change all of your usage of the word "matter" or "something" to "concept" and ignore your matter-based universe idea, then the second paragraph translates in to a relation between to concepts, which is in perfect conjunction of my relativity idea.
