by Anti-Christ 20 Replies latest jw friends
I agree with WTW...and I've seen "the change" in others and - to a degree - in myself. More than just an adaptation to environmental stressors (learning to go along to get along), there are - by means of outside influence - changes that can occur to the essential personality. The real test is in how one responds to adversity or some other experience which takes him or her outside daily routine - where he has no "rote" to depend upon. Carlos
Interesting.
Yeah some people change, some don't. Some were happy go lucky types in their early years and then turn into grumps later on.
Some were grumps to begin with then became happy.
Even people's personalities change.
Every 6 or 7 years we change completely all new cells.
But we can remember back to when we were children. The cells copy our memory.
I think we change or can change. Some people are always jerks. Some people may have been nice then become jerks.
I have different attitudes toward many things from when I was a child, or in my twenties, thirties, forties.
I dont look anything like I did when I was in my teens or my twenties.
A person can conciously decide to hang on to certain values or beliefs through out their life and some maintain those positions.
I remember in my 20's I said I would never leave Jehovah or his organization.
Guess what? I changed.
People DO change-positive or negatively.
Me: I have changed.
You: Yeah, but have you REALLY changed?
Me: I used to be over on that side of the room and now I'm here.
You: But you still think the same - you haven't changed.
Me: I used to be a JW and now I'm not.
You: Okay, but you're still the same with different beliefs.
Me: I don't know, it seems that changing those beliefs has really changed me. I no longer feel that I KNOW things. To me, that's a core philosophy. If your core philosophy changes, you've changed.
You: Well, perhaps it's that "core philosophy" that allowed you to leave that group in the first place. If you really felt that you KNEW things before, you'd still be in there - you haven't really changed.
It reminds me of the time I posited that nothing new had been invented in my lifetime. It worked great for casual conversation where people respond with things like DVDs, Blue LEDs and The Internet. But then people started going deeper (femto-second pulsed lasers, MEMS, the world-changing Segway). It started getting harder to show that the thing they would mention were actually based on other ideas. In the end I had to fall back on what the definition of "invention" was.
It's the same here. What's the definition of change? An atom in my body just gave up an electron - I've changed. I am still the person who was born to my mother - I have not changed. What really is the point of the question?
Here's my changes: When I was in early grade school I was very serious about grades and education. I was a perfectionist with all the positives and negatives it brought. I can remember that in Kindergarten, my 5's looked like my S's and I got marked down for that (my numbers and letters looked like a typewriter). When I was in the 1st grade I thought Vicky was cheating off my paper so I purposely put down some wrong answers and then forgot to correct them before handing my paper in. In the third grade I was taking a multiple choice test and found there to be too many of the same answer in a row so I changed one that I wasn't completely sure of and got it wrong. I could go on. I will die remembering exactly the mistakes I made in those early years.
When I was in the fifth grade, I started getting Migraines. Not just strong headaches, but strong headaches with stroke-like symptoms - half of my body would tingle, lips would go numb, couldn't recall some common words, fish-eye vision, etc...
I was referred to a neurologist who sat me down and explained to me who I was. He knew so much about me without personally knowing me. It was incredible. He gave me some advice and I was so impressed with him, that I took it.
The rest of my years at school are all a blur, but I do know one thing - before fifth grade I never seen a letter less than "A" on my report card. After fifth grade I saw the whole alphabet. I went from the gifted and talented boy to the kid with "potential". I found my place as the class clown for years after.
To me, that CHANGE was very deep. My entire philosophy changed. So much so that my physiology changed - I stopped having migraines.
Then I got serious about my parent's religion - Jehovah's Witnesses. No more fun and games. Life was important and I needed to show that in everything I did - another fairly sizable change for me.
When I was 26, I gave up the JW's. For me it was a BIG change. I didn't just give up on knowing that the WTBS was the truth. I didn't just give up my belief in The Bible, or God, or the supernatural. I gave up on the idea that you need to help others know what you know. Heck, I gave up on the idea that it is possible to "know" something. I gave up on the idea that it's important to find out what is real and true or that "real" and "true" even mean anything. I've given up on any idea that anyone has anything over anyone else.
If that isn't "change" according to you then no, I have not changed - I am still the being who was born to my mother.
You have to watch this movie called The Lives of Others, it's a German movie it's about if people can really change
Basic personality has set by 18-30 months of age. But we tend to mentally calcify with age - become more constrained, less flexible.
Unless we consciously avoid it. The more we practice a new thing, the better we become at it; the less we practice, the worse we become at it.
It's more like as we age we can choose to build new rooms onto our personality and work out of those rooms. Is it the same house?
Physically, we change every day. The aging process makes us appear different, changes our bodies. Our cells are constantly dying and replenishing.
A schizophrenic with the right medications is an effective participant in society. Have the meds changed him? Which is the real "him"?
If my poor eyesight is fixed with surgery, have I changed? Which is the real "me"?
We tend to pay attention to behaviors that fit our expecatations of people. If they act "out of character", we will often not notice. Have they changed?
I think people can change.
Uhh, on second thought...
No, they don't.
Hold on, I just proved myself wrong.
OM
p.s. Now let's talk about free-will...
"As the same thing in us is living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and conversely those having changed around are these." - Heraclitus
"All life is flux and nothing stays the same". - Plato
Our personality formation normally occurs early in our development, but who we are, things we experience, situations beyond our control change our perception and our thoughts. This is a process that is always working and reworking. I find it odd, could just be me, that people think we do not change and then give a list of ways that we do indeed change. Everyday, you are engaged in life, you adapt, you modify, you conclude and adjust your mode of operatus based on input. Things we can't control, such as sickness, etc change us.
The degree of change is the issue here. The exact change and where and how is the issue here. We may hold a basic belief or philosophy, and while we may learn things, we may still hold that core belief, but to say we do not change, I believe is quite incorrect. Every person here is a result of a change in thinking. Now you still may like ice cream and prefer vanilla over chocolate because that's your core, but you changed and you change every day that input goes in your mind. The degree of which is up to you. It can negative, postive or neutral and just moving forward.
Human nature is about change, so the answer is yes.
Thank you all for your awesome input, a lot of interesting things to think about, I guess I'm going to change my way of seeing things....
