What Defines the Nature of a Man?

Satisfaction.

It is told that no charity is truly praiseworthy, because it is never done for no other reason than to help another. Even when those clueless plaadins claim that they help others without expecting anything in return, they are already getting an important thing: Satisfaction.

It is often said that nothing can match the satisfaction of a job well done. Doesn't this mean that the greatest rewad one can achieve is the satisfaction of achieving his goals?

Heres the deal: Elysium, which represents the ultimate good, traps its victims. It first slowly alters a berks psyche. The berk slowly becomes more optimistic and easygoing. He will not be disappointed or heart brokeen. In the end he will believe that where he is is where he wants to be and what he is is what he wants to be. He will be content. And once you are content, once you are satisfied, there is no reason for you to live anymore. Other than survival, you have accomplished your life goal. At this point, he will be absorbed to the "plane of ultimate good".

Gray Waste, the exact opposite of Elysium does the same with a different way. It makes you believe that there's no point to anything. you slowly loose all interest in life and its concerns, its joys and its sadnesses. Nothing is really worth it. Even if you do it, you do it for no real reason. This is hell in its perfect form. You can imagine heaven in hell, hoping one day you will be saved, pardoned, relieved of your tortures. But what if you think that there's no point to being saved? The result is the same. You have lost your reason of existence. Youwill be just a grey husk of protomaterail waiting to be absorbed in the "plane of ultimate evil".

So mortals and immortals alike struggle for that one thing that gives meaning to their lives: That intimate, irreplaceable, egoistical feeling of satisfaction. They derive their satisfaction from many different things, some fight evil monsters, other fill vaults with riches, some tortue and rape, others love and raise children. But in the end, it the nature of sentient life to never be satisfied. You know in your suvconscious that bein truly satisfied is a dead end.

Ah, but where does the drive for satisfaction, or the wellspring of hopes and dreams spring forth from? To answer the question posed by CoA, let us journey into the realm of experience for a moment. Suppose an atrocity happens, in broad daylight, for many to see. How will different people see it happen? Naturally, as people exist in seperate locations from one another, this atrocity would be viewed from a variety of different perspectives and vantage points, and that's just the physical nature of experience. Then comes the various viewpoints, opinions and belifes of the various viewers of the atrocity. For instance, a sensate committing suicide and with a cleric handy to ressurect him might find the whole experience quite enlightening... but would a dustman agree? Of course not; for a dustman to commit suicide, and then have a cleric prepared to raise him would be anti-thema to his value system. Neither the sensate or the dustman are right or wrong, nor good or evil for how they would each approach such a situation, but never the less, we have here two very different experiences of the same event. So to come back to the atrocity, is it nessesarily an atrocity to every observer, or for the revolutionary who has commited the atrocity, is it a gleaming step of glory? I will remain with my origional point: The Powers drives us to experience things, they motivate us with dreams and hopes, they fill us with the instinct for satisfaction, because ultimately, they need us to experience things. Do they need our worship? No, but worship allows them to keep tabs on which of us are going to have the experiences they desire most... the juciest experiences, if you will.

Granted, they Powers have experiences with one another, but let's face it, when you're addicted to something, you tend to want more and more, and when a Power can have hundreds of well-seasoned worshippers every day, who've passed over, as well as their own experiences every day, well... as a sensate I can tell you that it's worth it.

So just to emphasize my point here is a picture.it's simple really(and altogether complex)variations in these frequencies could result in different behavioral patterns

Actually it does

The state of mind is changeable.when we experience something new the brain creates new neurons.it grows and becomes stronger(sharper).so maybe our fellow sensate is right after all(but don't be so quick to differentiate my ''scientific'' to your philosophical approach.i just explain why in the first place you are capable for ''philosophical'' discussion)

You very curiously reject an important aspect of this discussion, then.  Physiology is important in defining a species' nature.  The limitations imposed by our senses and our genetic heuristics shape our thoughts, be we human or elf or any other species. An ettin thinks with two brains, and an ooze with a distributed brain.  These affect their natures drastically.  Who among us has not heard the story of the mage who spent too much time shapeshifted, his thoughts becoming bestial and inhuman?  Have you ever attempted to reason with a shifted lycanthrope in the same way you did when he was humanoid, only to find that his reactions were starkly different, instinctive and predatory?  How many times has a lifetime of strong drink or a single swift blow to the head left a man a different person?

Some beings transcend physicality.  Some, such as spirits, or beings made of the stuff of philosophy -- like yourself, O rilmani, and other exemplars -- possess thought patterns for which the accident of physical appearance may be nigh irrelevant.  But for mortals bound to bodies, bodies are of paramount importance in defining our natures.  It is clear to anyone who sees a petitioner that we have something which is separate from that body, and survives it, but the accident of birth in a given species is a defining point of existence.  A human who dies and is reincarnated (by birth -- mighty spells might have a different effect) as a dwarf is now a dwarf, with a past life as a human.

Your original question could have a fairly good answer in the form of "a man is anything that must sense and think about the world in the patterns defined by a human brain." 

Let me again in response paraphrase your question then, to see if I have it more accurately.  You are not interested so much in what might actually set or define a being as a man, as, rather, in nailing down the consequences of what that definition entails.  (The meta-game answers being respectively "a character is a man if given the human racial template," and "such a character gets an extra feat and base skill point.")

The in-game answer would seem to be "humans are defined by their adaptability," as the designers portray it.  The human racial paragon class plays up this theme further, as does the "Races of Destiny" sourcebook.  If we combine this with the question of what does the defining, we come to the suggestion that humans are notable for having mentalities particularly well suited for probing their circumstances, assimilating the information thus received, and responding to this knowledge.

Your final questions is more along the lines of "what motivates a man."   This is by no means equivalent to defining a man; claiming that motivations define someone is by no means axiomatic to me.  At any rate, the question is also so broad as to be meaningless.  Some human has had almost every motivation ever conceived, in proportions varying between persons and throughout a single person's lifetime.  There is a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together.  Concerning which are the overriding motivations, we might turn to Maslow's hierarchy of needs: survival and reproduction are driving needs for any mortal, followed by shelter and security, then emotional and intellectual fulfillment, social status and so forth; being a social animal, these drives too can be proportioned among the group, with a few members of the society willing to forego security (become a soldier) or reproduction (become a priest) in order to benefit the group overall.