notverylikely

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Posts by notverylikely

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  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

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  notverylikely

  They only have to be unknown, unforeseen and/or unknowable to make the supposed "freedom" of our will irrelevent.

  "Free will" or, as you want to call it, "controlled will", is not measured by accomplishment, but rather, by the freedom and ability to attempt accomplishment.

  If you can grant that unknown impediments to our will are not only possible, but, likely---you have taken the first essential step in eroding the "free" part of free will.

  Again you misunderstand what free will is. You are starting with a misunderstanding of the idea and then proceed to an erroneous conclusion. Free will does not in ANY way imply accomplishment.

  I'm asserting that WHY we do what we do when we do it---is NOT actually known by us at all. We put a fiction on it and assure ourselves WE are doing it for cause and for reason and by CHOICE.

  Part of it is, part of it isn't, part of it partially is. I don't think anyone is surprised or shocked by that. That's pretty well known (and somewhat different from your original assertion that there was no such thing as free will. A will can be free, even if we don't fully understand why we made the decision we did.)
• 
  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  notverylikely

  Well, it sure is easy to just point and laugh without giving your own examples to prove your own point (so that I can point and laugh :)

  Besides nay-saying--what reasoned argument do you offer?

  You're the one that put your hypothesis up for inspection, not me. I am not responsible for your flawed example. Think of this like you are a student defending your thesis. You are required to defend why what you wrote is correct. If your professor points out a flawed conclusion you draw, you can't turn around and say "oh yeah? well how would you say it then? if I am wrong, you do a better job!". This kind of argument only detracts from your debating skills.

  You might want to read up on "thought experiment" and come up with another example as opposed to trying to task me with coming up with one.
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  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  notverylikely

  I am saying that no randomness exists only seeming unpredictible chaos.

  So it might as well be random, then. If we cannot predict it and it's chaotic, then, for all practical purposes, it might as well be random.
• 
  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  notverylikely

  A boulder has no self-preservation. Avoiding falling by grabbing a branch is self-preservation. What we call a no-brainer. Snowboarding skill is but an outgrowth of not-crashing-and-maybe-killing-myself.

  Humans also choose to engage in risky behavior. Snowboarding turning isn't always about not crashing. Sometimes people ignore self preservation and save others instead.

  Why would someone 99 times out of a hundres save themselves and then sometimes choose the exact opposite?
• 
  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  notverylikely

  1.Did I make a choice (since the coin actually DETERMINED the course of action) in submitting to the seemingly chaotic outcome of the toss?

  I chose to follow the coin....

  2.If I did make a choice by agreeing to follow the cointoss----is CHOICE really irrelevant (considering the follow up action was chaotically DETERMINED)?

  The result of the coin toss was chaotic. MY choice was to follow the result of the coin. Alternatively, I could choose to ignore the coin.

  THINK about how we dance around in our head what constitutes "choice" and what constitutes "determination" and how seemingly indifferent the mechanism is.

  OK, but the experiment you proposed just proved that we can choose to blindly do what the coin says or not. If the heads result was such that I would have to cut off a finger every time, I would choose to not follow the coin. Actually, I would make sure that following the coin toss was something where I wouldn't mind the results either way.
• 
  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  notverylikely

  The "taking steps to change that behavior" is not actually taking steps to change that behavior at all. It is taking steps to

  change ___another similiar__behavior in a subsequent setting.

  A behavior is a pattern of doing something. Smoking is a behavior, biting your nails, etc. Quitting either of those is making a choice to change a behavior.

  I think you have fallen into a mental trap similar to Zeno's paradox (google zeno and arrow). However, you are framing the question in a way that ignores a lot of factors or reduces them to simple terms that don't explain the universe around us (see "Changing a behavior")

  If you saw a candid video of a man ambling about a small town sqaure with __no apparent__intention in mind you might quickly conclude his actions were random. Yes?

  Once you interviewed the man you might discover he was breaking in a new pair of shoes.

  No. You're example of like a lot of what I see in the WTS (see "Boy on train tracks"). You set up an example, then suggest a conclusion that is erroneous, then give the answer. Maybe he is just stretching his legs, getting some air, is restless. Suggesting what MY answer would be and then proving the answer I didn't give wrong to prove your hypothesis right is a logical fallacy.
• 
  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  notverylikely

  Humans are of nature as is a boulder, the tides or smoke.

  Then why can I decide to write this but a boulder has no choice but to obey the environment? Why can I choose to type with one hand or without?

  Yet, this is a distinction without a difference in my view.

  Really? That's odd. Let's use your example of gravity. A boulder has no choice but to fall towards an object pulling on it. A human can choose to grab onto a branch, or lean back or design a rocket and overcome gravity. When I am on a snowboard I can choose to angle my board left or right to turn using gravity or choose to stop.

  Those are all examples of differences with a distiction. The board just slides down the hill subject to whatever bumps and turns are there. When I am on it, I choose to turn it where I wish to go.

  Ahhhh, but, you've done a "freeze frame" and called it "choice". You've ignored the continuum. The context.

  Before the moment you did the freeze was preceded by yet another urge and another in finite regress back to the genes transmitted in the embryo.

  So you are concluding that there is a complete lack of randomness and every decision is based upon events beyond our control? My decision right now to get ready to leave work instead of 15 minutes was sealed by the fluction of billions of unknown factors going back to the big bang?

  I would suggest that you don't wander around in the metaphysical high country without a guide.
• 
  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  notverylikely

  We *think* it is our choice, but in reality there are many unknown forces at work that influence our though process.

  But we can also decide that we don't like the way we act in an irritated mood and decide to take steps to change that behavior.
• 
  159

  CHOICE may be a mere illusion. FREE WILL a trick of the mind's ego

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  things are what they are.. everything acts according to its nature.. nothing escapes its own nature.. we cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.. consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?.

  1. if you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice?

  2. offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  notverylikely

  Everything acts according to its nature.

  Nothing escapes its own nature.

  Ah, I knew something was wrong and I figured out what it was. You are correlating the physical laws of the universe (i.e., gravity) and instinct with human choices and the ability to make decisions.

  Your original premise, that a rock has a much choice whether or not to fall as I do when deciding what I want for lunch, is flawed. Therefore, any conclusion you draw from it is at least highly suspect.
• 
  110

  An Explanation of why TIME TRAVEL does not work

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  energy and matter are neither created nor destroyed.. consequently, the building blocks of existence are actually finite parts.. to create things in "tomorrow" which are new, something has to be dismantled to leave spare parts for tomorrow's new thing.. the old thing deteriorates, (dies/disintegrates) and the parts become available to make the new thing.. time travel requires going to a place where today's parts are available to be rearranged.. some of today's things persist as they are, of course.

  they only travel through time by persisting as they are.

  (mountains, for example.).

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  notverylikely

  I'm familiar with all the standard attempts to define it. I just don't buy it.

  Which ones don't you buy?