This one's a bit old but I decided to post it anyway while I overcome my writer's block.
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water said:
While we're at it: Welcome to the Truman World!
I have never seen the film but I'm sure there is more irony to it than meets the eye.
We are creating our own truth.
water said:
You see, the greater the number of people who believe in something you already believe in, the more cogent that belief becomes. Of course it doesn't work if you didn't already believe, but if you did, then the group becomes like anchors. Our assumptions become truth. And so the big religions thrive. And so science thrives. Herd mentality, regardless of how much we like to perceive ourselves to be independent.
water said:
Well, there is a way to make sense of this. See the theory of discourse.
Must I Google everything myself? Enlighten me.
Pour water into this empty vessel
I learn from you.
water said:
Just because we think it is so doesn't mean it is so.
water said:
Of course. But it's not like we have some other option but to think things some way. Or do you have a *viable* solution to this?
There are ways to purify our thinking, if you will, so that it becomes more - how shall I say -
ours than society's. Just look to the long misunderstood idiot savant, held in pity by the great physicians of the early twentieth century. All for not fitting in with society. How the irony plays, for the pity is on them. There are somethings we can know for sure and these we will know only if we trust the atomist. Knowledge is not atomos. But knowledge is of the atoms.
water said:
(And this ex post/ex ante distinction -- it's really useful, isn't it? See, and you were so much against this Paulinka language!)
Well I'm not the one who scared her off, now am I? I saw her around the other day. I wonder what she is up to.
Reading the dictionary I bet. *Snicker*
water said:
Did you will yourself to think you have free will?
water said:
Actually, this is possible. If we understand free will as a side-product of some other process(es) (also see my hiccups thread), then it is possible to will oneself into thinking that one has free will.
But this does not happen directly, on command, just like one cannot fall asleep on command or forget on command. But there are different strategies that we employ (even though we may not be in full awareness of while employing them) that seem to lead to that goal, yet at the same time we can't say that those strategies obligatorily lead to that goal.
There are ways to make yourself be more courageous.
The direct way -- telling yourself to be more courageous -- won't necessarily lead to being courageous, it may very well result in a painful experience of failure.
But think how there is a line of little things that one does, whereby each single one of them doesn't seem to lead to the goal of becoming more courageous. Yet one does them, more or less intutively, and eventually, they lead to becoming more courageous.
That was actually a trick question. One cannot will when there is no one to will in the first place. It is certainly possible to
trick oneself into the illusion of free will, for as with all knowledge free will too is an inference - and hence not truth.
In his
I spy experiment Wegner was also able to demonstrate his theory of 'apparent mental causation'. The lion in
The Wizard of Oz, was "tricked" into drinking some potion or whatever that which was purported to deliver courage. The lion soon after became ferocious and not at all timid, but the reader learns that the drink was impotent. Why then did the lion believe the "I" had changed from cowardly to brave? Is it because he had been brave all along?
Of course, the ruse used by the wizard would not have worked for everyone just as your trick for curing hiccups is probably not universal. By this, we must resign and admit that it is perhaps not simply the potion or the mere thought which facilitates action and produces change. We must dig deeper, past what seems apparent and what is accepted, the things that seem "self evident". We must get our hands dirty to discover truth shrouded in falsehood.
Wegner himself identifies these three sources of the experience of free will:
consistency, priority, and exclusivity. I am not sure my focus now is on free will as much as it is on knowledge itself and so I will move for on for the time being.
water said:
Be a man!
water said:
You are so going to regret this.
It was a compliment. I swear.
water said:
I'm not being myself these days ...
By which you mean you are not in the same mode of behavior you are used to. Complacency lulls us all and we cling dearly to it, like the cool side of a pillow on a rainy night.
All you have to do is be normal. Shouldn't be too hard for you water.
Flow, flow, flow the boat,
Gently down the stream.
water said:
Maybe what needs to be revised is the concept of truth. Usually, we understand truth to be something pertaining to logical and factual consistency.
But then -- Truth is beauty, beauty truth -- this (by now quite worn) verse makes me think in other ways. That truth is about what is important, and not about what is strictly logically true.
To an extent, what is important and what is logically true correspond, and hence the confusion.
But all in all, I say truth has more to do with what is important (to a certain person/social group), rather than with logical and factual consistency.
There is a reason why we say "One believes what one wants to believe" -- by this, we actually mean 'One believes what one finds important (in one way or another)'. The "wants to believe" is pointing at one's values and preferences. One's values and preferences determine what is important to one.
But if one cannot be responsible for what their values and preferences turn out to be, how can it be said that they are the ones who find them important, how can it be said that they are the ones who believe. Do sheep think, or do the sheep think?
For truth, I think truth is knowledge unadulterated by inference, undefiled by thought. The savant knows truth. But he does not understand it. By not understanding it, his knowledge is never blemished into inference by the despoiler of man that is society and its foolish arbitrariness. He sees and he draws. He hears and he repeats. Why, he does not know what he repeats, for he is 'idiot' and cannot form two sentences. But oh yes, he knows. He knows more than he knows he knows.
During a sabbatical to Cambridge in 1987, Snyder devoured Ramachandran’s careful studies of perception and optical illusions. One showed how the brain derives an object’s three-dimensional shape: Falling light creates a shadow pattern on the object, and by interpreting the shading, the brain grasps the object’s shape. “You’re not aware how your mind comes to those conclusions,” says Snyder. “When you look at a ball, you don’t know why you see it as a ball and not a circle. The reason is your brain is extracting the shape from the subtle shading around the ball’s surface.” Every brain possesses that innate ability, yet only artists can do it backward, using shading to portray volume.
“Then,” says Snyder, speaking slowly for emphasis, “I asked the question that put me on a 10-year quest”—how can we bypass the mind’s conceptual thinking and gain conscious access to the raw, uninterpreted information of our basic perceptions? Can we shed the assumptions built into our visual processing system?
Link
So you see. Truth is to be found in the "raw, uninterpretated information of our basic perceptions".
If we say truth is about what is important, then we fool ourselves terribly and we blind ourselves and scale our eyes. This sort of truth, why, it is the truth of society. Environment is what determines what is important to us, and not we ourselves - for there is no "we". The environment determines the way you interpret and they way you interpret interpretations, the way you interact with society, the way you respond to stimuli. You are not distinct and removed from this environment, you are a part of it - inseparable in all regards - and you only think otherwise. This illusion of autonomy is all in your head.
If I said God was important to me, it would surely be because of my society, whether or not I chose to accept it. Perhaps because theism was injected into me and it became a part of me, inseparable. Or because I wished to part ways with my atheist parents and in doing so did not realize that their disbelief had influenced my thoughts of rebellion. And so what is important to us has been determined for us by this almost inescapable web of society, to which we have fallen prey - mind body and soul - and like helpless things we cannot pry lose. There is no distinction, for we are one and we are inseparable.
*Of course this is simplification but after I am done explaining the role of consciousness and causality in knowledge, it will become more than self evident that autonomy - freedom - is impossible in all respects*
water said:
Just because every single human being comes to the same conclusion independently does not mean it is true. Just because we ALL think we think does not mean it is true. All it indicates is that nature has programmed us to think and reach the same conclusions, so that we can all agree, so that we can form bonds and create society. But. It does not mean that we are right.
water said:
Right in regards to what? By whose standards?
Right by
our standards, the absolute standard provided in the raw, uninterpretated information of our basic perceptions. Not right by groupthink, not the right of society and its accursed influence on the minds of men.
Just like the savante, we too possess this preliminary horde of raw perception before tarnishing. It is not perfect - that is not what I imply - but it is certainly purer than the sh-t we believe, the rubbish continually corrupted by the egomanical whims of a perverse parasite. Society. Killer of man.
water said:
We make inferences all the time.
If I'd say, "Oh, I'm so tired, I haven't slept at all", someone who knows me will infer that this is from getting up so many times during the night for my cat, and then lead the conversation in that way.
Someone who doesn't know me will either have to ask how come I haven't slept, or will fill up the answer himself by saying "Yet another hysteric woman worrying about her hair."
But the savant, he does not make inferences. He cannot; he knows not how. What you don't know can't hurt you.
*Use of the semicolon implies a relationship between knowing and doing. This is not so and is surely not intended. Try not to make that inference*
water said:
Or we can say that language itself already is a form of agreement; an expression of agreement.
An agreement with who, or what?
water said:
Oh yes. Come to think -- regarding the above, what can we say about the notion of truth being about what is important, rater than about what is logically and factually true?
The latter is farcical and rest on preposterous assumptions, the gruesome crassness of which is appalling even to the
beserkers. The one too is egocentric.
water said:
Sure. But what actually are the senses? For example, one can be deaf because one has an impairment of the hearing organs, or one can be deaf due to some brain damage.
The *effective* abilities of a deaf person's brain are different from the *effective* abilities of a hearing person's brain, aren't they?
Do you remember my talking about the overlap between sensory input and thoughts in the RD? In case you don't have a copy, here it is:
When we speak of the consciousness, what do we mean? The consciousness can perceive (be aware) of thoughts and sensory input. Thoughts in this case will entail emotions and the voice in our head. Sensory input refers to when we feel, taste, see, smell, or hear. The two often seem to overlap for at times, sensory input can be ‘mimicked’ in thoughts.
Frank Tong, researcher at Princeton University, makes note of “novel body illusions” and
Robert Lee Hotz agrees, “At some fundamental level, thinking about an action and performing it appear to be almost the same.”
If the deaf person at one time was able to hear, then auditory thought will continue to be possible for him. The loss of functionality in the organ does not detract from his prior experience and the knowledge given by it. The now deaf person will still be able to remember past events in sound just like a hearing person. In this regard, they do not differ. I don't see why the deaf person should not even be able to superimpose sound to accompany moving lips and so on. If he sees a vase fall, he will still expect a loud crash - as opposed to if he was born with poor ears. And so it depends on which of these deaf persons you refer to and which abilities you have in mind.
Yes, I saw it, posted there.
It must be that the connection between the auditory part of language and the abstract part of language is being underappreciated.
If language were indeed mostly about abstractions, why then is it so excrutiatingly hard to learn it just from the written form (at least for me)??
As a multilingual, I have made this observation: How do we recognize which language is something written in? It seems by "the way the words look" -- but this is what we are conditioned into, being used to think of language as something to be written. One tells by the sound of words which language they are from.
Well I'm not at all knowledgeable in the fields of linguistics but your observation fits in to what we have already discussed: the 'I'. Just like the 'I', we recognize language by its 'behavior', in this case perhaps tone and so on. I do think that your connection needs a little improving upon. When I see a Kung Fu movie, I certainly do not know all the words in the Chinese vocabulary - I do not know even one - but I can tell from the movie that the characters are speaking "Chinese". In fact, they may be speaking some other language like Japanese, but to me, they all
sound the same and I categorize them as having the same behavior. Only further experience will abate my ignorance in this case.
This prima facie inference too is present in the identification of the 'I' and it is partly why knowledge is never to be confused with truth (as I have defined it here).
Another interesting thing. It appears we can only daydream when our eyes are open.
Why even argue? I can neither validate nor invalidate your knowledge.
But I will say this: You're weird.
Knowledge is *based* on our senses, yes. But the crux is that we analyze and interpret what we get from the senses -- enter social conditioning and all its implications.
You are right and I had better refine my statement.
Truth is based on the senses.
Exactly. It is as if there is a "methodological scheme", an "analytical apparatus" of how to approach reality, and what we see is actually the combined effort of the sensory input and that methodological scheme.
This usually becomes apparent only in "more emotionally laden situations" or when it comes to judgements of evaluation -- the famous, "Two men were sitting in a prison cell and looked out of the window. One saw a starry night, the sky washed with rain, the other saw muddy puddles on the ground." -- one man was optimistic, and the other was pessimistic ...
If there is no already available "methodological scheme", phenomena in reality are approached with the already existing "methodological schemes", the most frequent process in this being metaphorization. For one thing, we are not conditioned into experiencing ourselves that way. Not so many centuries back, it was the heart that was the seat of what makes a person.
Yes very clever. The merger between truth and knowledge; the meeting of pure information and society's scarlet effect. Truth can only be interpreted with preexisting knowledge (the 'analytical apparatus'). As such, it is an impossibility for knowledge, albeit it is
based on truth, to be itself true, for it has been tainted already by previous bias and inclination. From whence cometh this bias and inclination? Society of course. But I bet you are itching to hear my 'viable solution', the means by which man is finally to avail himself of wicked bondage and soar on his own wings. I don't know exactly how it is to be done, but I do know the savante holds the key for he is impervious to society's cavorting with the chaste mind.
For those men who sat in the jail cell, their perspective was fully influenced by their own histories, their environments. Right from birth, one thing led to another which led to another which led to their being held captive in society's penal cage. Why they did not percieve themselves as being influenced by eternal factors, but rather as autonomous creatures, I will explain soon enough. Our present view of ourselves via the brain is further evidence of the far reaching grip of society on our thinking, molding and dictating the 'methodological scheme'.
We have said a lot about this already, so here just a tiny thought: For Westerners, the obsession with one-ness, unity, whole-ness is crucial. We think there must be a beginning and an end. A whole. We feel there is something wrong if a film or a book ends in an "open end", without there being a closure.
And this "methodological scheme" of oneness is also planted on how we experience what goes on in our bodies and heads. We have constructed our understanding of the I in a manner wanting to comply with this idea of oneness, unity, wholeness.
For further reference, see Dylan Thomas'
That sanity be kept.
That which keeps his sanity, why, it would surely fling mine to the wind. To see enslaved chattel prancing as if they were free, as if they were independent, as if there was good and true and pure to be found in the world, in the flowers. Who is to blame?
Yes, the term "conscious" has many uses. (Wonder why ...)
By "consciously developing a belief" I mean that if I look back (ex post, sic!), I can tell what I have been doing in the past, I can analyze my actions, my studying -- it was a graduate development of belief. And, since I (have the impression) that it (all or most) happened with my knowledge that it happened (like I know (and will know) that I am typing this here, I know that I have looked up things in books, memorized them, thought about them, sought arguments ...), I say that I have consciously developed a belief -- in opposition to being forced into accepting a belief, being brainwashed, or in opposition to the special case of divine intervention.
If my belief didn't "just happen" without me having much idea of how it happened, then I can say that I have developed it consciously. This is, of course, an ex post estimation. However, once knowing how these processes (seem to) take place, I can take specific efforts to develop new beliefs: instead of waiting to meet an interesting person to talk to and learn new things, I can go to the library and read books. Instead of just reading a book and relying on random memorization, I can make a targeted effort to memorize certain things by using mindmaps, excerpts etc.
This is the fallacy of mistaking knowledge with truth. We may know we are free, but it does not mean we are; our ancestors may have looked to the heart for wisdom, but it does not mean Athena hid there. But you have saved yourself by making an important observation: knowledge is a gradual development of belief. Now although belief is knowledge, we shall describe belief as what society impresses upon us. After is is impressed, when we dwellon it, it becomes knowledge. (Of course these definitions are radically different from the common dictionary ones, but I am starting to need my own terminology here. Will you blame me, O 'methodological scheme'?)
This gradual piling up of belief into a great stack of knowledge is what makes the 'I'. I was marverlling to myself the other day: wouldn't it be marvelous if I could will myself to know this whole theory? But instead, I am forced to start from scratch.
Strict determinism. If my initial thread had not generated such a response, I most probably would not be typing this today. Afterwards, only a specific thought resulted in another specific thought which building upon itself, resulted a grander one and so on. If at any point I had thought any differently, the whole of my theory would be greatly different from what it is now. More simply: if I had not thought about the discrepancy in knowledge, I would not have doubted free will; if I had not doubted the Bible, I would never have doubted Christianity. You see, one thing
led to another. I had no power over what it led to, as the thoughts came to me, I wrote them down and they opened up new avenues. But this is how all our discussion new coagulates. Do you remember the good old circles? Well they are a good way of explaining how knowledge is eternally linked, each consequent thought we entertain being narrowed in scope.
Our body of knowledge is a ring of circles. Our first knowledge is the outer circle and it led to the inner circle and so on, each time becoming more complex. At the fourth circle for example, which would be the fourth truth, the first three circles, being our only analytical apparatus at the time, ALL influenced (to some measure) the way we interpreted this fourth truth. Of course, as the number of circles increased, the more and more each new piece of information became tainted by the previous collection of circles. And so we do not interpret each new information independently of previous experience. As follows inevitably, the statements "I think" and "I know" are false, for in a sense, our previous experiences do the thinking for us, dictating and molding each thought. This is where consciousness also comes into the picture - where we are not aware of this. But there is one thing seeminglyu unaccounted for thus far by this model: creativity. How are novel thoughts formed if all knowledge and all thought is merely a culmination of past experience. To answer this requires the final piece to the puzzle - consciousness - and we are getting there slowly but surely. We will also see how statements such as "I did action X consciously" too are inaccuracies.
--
Notice that although knowledge is constricted by the foundation of circles it rests on, truth itself is not. This 'raw information', before processing, is not interpreted and is therefore free of any such restraints. It is the cleanest picture of reality available to the individual. Again I do not say error-free, but rather most accurate picture.
Why horrible? If you want say something, you have to use language. And language does not belong to you, and you have not invented it, you have not made it from scratch. Sure, once you have acquired a language and can use it, you can go and be a hermit and never talk to anyone again, and be "free". But as long as you are using language, you are bound to other people, in good and in bad.
Yes, language too is part of knowledge as we have defined it before. But as so many of our circles become permeated with language, we come to know through language, and so language becomes one of the greatest barriers between knowledge and truth. But as with all knowledge, language is also not sired by the individual, but rather given by society as a means with which to 'dumb' him down, to destroy his understanding and limit his comprehension to words which themselves are limited. And so you see, quiet unavoidably man's knowledge too will be immured in smaller and smaller circles. And man becomes a prisoner in his own head.
Nature programs us again. We have no 'choice' in the matter. And so, our knowledge becomes skewed. Remember the example about Paula? The inference of understanding is made subliminally, but ends up in the conscious. But again, we deal with inferences, second hand knowledge.
Oh yes. The history of philosophy is full of theories about that.
Don't mistake me for those quacks.
Don't worry I am speaking generally and might sometimes use "you" to carry my point.
Hold on.
Concepts do exist, or we couldn't talk about them. The mode of their existence, however, is to us different than the mode of existence of a tree, for example.
Tell me what you mean by "exist" and let's compare.
For me, truth exists. (Henceforth when I speak of truth, I use my definition). As truth is the purest representation of reality, it exists. For example, if you had bad eyesight and everything was blurry to you, that bluriness exists for it is an inextricable part of reality and there is no separation where the bluriness is said to be illusory and the rest 'real'. Your interpretation of your vision, the concept, does not exist except on the level of the atomist - the neurons. Because it may be argued that the 'raw information' also exists only on the level of the neurons as do dreams and 'hallucinations', I prefer to restrict existence to any of these things not tainted by interpretation ie. society. Put simply, it only exists if no one put it in your head.
We must stress here though that a *certain* kind of I is thus created. Not all I's (as we can empirically observe them) fit your description. The are asocial, antisocial and sociopath people, for example, whose sense for social responsibility is different from that of other I's.
It is also not a matter of fact that if one throws a stone and the stone flies away and falls, that there is a connection between the throwing (what the hand did) and what happened with the stone. This may seem like an idiotically simple example, yet it is about learned knowledge. To give an example of this same line of thought on a more complex level: there are people who don't make the connection that the mountains of garbage have something to do with them throwing things away.
But do socially deprived people have an 'I', do they need one? I don't think so. I don't see how it would be necessary for any function but then again I don't see why nature thought this free will assumption was a must for social functioning. When the hand throws a stone, it is not necessary for there to be an I just like when you are daydreaming, it is not necessary to be 'conscious of oneself'. From the 'I' stems the sense of ownership: ie. "This is my hand", "When I will to use my hand, my hand will move and not my mother's" etc. I think this is a good elementary description to use for without an "I", it is difficult to see how there can be a "my".
And so, you now know, you do not exist. Shocked to death yet? More to come.
And who has written you this? A ... phantom? Wait, phantoms exist too.
Oho! But without anyone to put the idea of phantoms in my head, I would not know of phantoms. And thus, they cannot exist! Nowhere to be found in my repository of 'raw information' are these phantoms. They are only a concept imprinted, merged with the sensory, for a coherent interpretation. Hmm... I suppose that must mean the "I" too is merely for the purpose of coherent inference.
Like chasing a rainbow..
A very cruel trick by God. A very cruel trick.
*gasp*
*ahhh*
How do you know it is by God?
Society has put it into my mind. As with all knowledge, one thing led to another and here. I am.
But what's the point in looking for the origin of thoughts? Will that theory, that explanation make my life more meaningful, will it affect how I interact with people? What can I do with that theory? Can I eat it, sleep with it?
For me, I will relish in my antiestablishmentarianism. Freedom must follow, for surely the sheep too want to be free do they not?
Yes, amazing, isn't it? We can take *any* two phenomena and picture them together. We can make a connection between *any* two things.
(Ever read Kipling's
Just so stories?)
I read 'How the first letter was written'. Very amusing. How this connection is made is what I want to know but unfortunately the explanation is beyond words. What I need is to know how to fashion ingenious thoughts at will. That itself is another theory altogether..
But that itself is a problem. I become more confident of my position, because Hume arrived at similar conclusions independently. That is of course a non sequitur and makes no sense! And yet.
How can there be an ad hom when man does not exist? Where then lies the real logical fallacy? Reification disqualifies many arguments.
And you want first hand knowledge? Divine intervention.
Savantes must be snacking on the tree of knowledge then.. lucky bastards. We wouldn't know God if he smacked us upside the head.
Whether it is true or not is a judgement of reason. But if reason is not all there is to us -- then we must allow that there are things reason can't explain, things that we simply axiomatize (which is still an act of reason -- the act when reason admits its helplessness and circularity, and succombs).
It surely sure as hell is damning! But only if one thinks that reason is all there is to us.
Well. It seems to me either reason is all that is needed to know truth, or it is utterly useless, only hindrance. Anyone can reason the existent of purple aliens controlling our heads using the same reasoning used to justify science as
the bona fide path to knowledge. In the end,
reason only serves to justify the beliefs we are comfortable with.
But to know truth, we must eliminate the self, transcend the ego.
The "absurdity of free will" is there for you because of your definition of free will.
Considering free will is a biological impossibility, I am not sure how any alteration to the popular definition at all salvages it. Its simplistic portrayal of life is obviously inadequate in accounting for the manifold inconsistencies which testify to its falsity. I assure you, remove the 'I', and every piece of the puzzle falls into place. Egoism dams truth.
I think I already asked you to give your own valid definition of free will but I can't find your response so please, let's hear the "non-absurd" definition. Here are a couple of definitions from the internet:
It might also be useful to define will. As I understand it, it is a matter of intent: The perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes we engage in when confronted by a choice result in an intent to engage in certain actions or non-actions. I have before me a cheese danish and a poppy seed muffin. I look, I sniff, I consider past experiences, I feel good about both prospects, and then I decide. I intend to eat the cheese danish (or the muffin, or neither, or both...). Whether I am free to actually eat it, or whether I can expect severe punishment for doing so, is irrelevant. I have made up my mind!
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/freewill.html
Reliance on ex post knowledge to assume via circular reason that he is able to do what he doesn't know how to do.
Wrong. Benjamin Libet would have a field day monitoring his brain.
The minimalist account of free will is as the ability to select a course of action as a means of fulfilling some desire. David Hume, for example, defines liberty as "a power of acting or of not acting, according to the determination of the will." (1748, sect.viii, part 1). And we find in Edwards a similar account of free willings as those which proceed from one's own desires.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
Assuming causality via circular reasoning where
none can be established, for there is none.
Wrong.
I don't need to go on with the various definitions listed on the Stanford site. The very assumption of a controller is absurd. Again, the absence of knowledge that there really is causality, a controller, or a choice, is being used as a stepping stone from which to trumpet free will as the order of the day. Ignorance. And ego. Which comes first?
(Trick question)
Muhahah! Wait. There are not so few people who don't believe there is something like "psychological illness". It is a modern obsession to classify all sorts of psychological states (that may be passing though) as some sort of psychological illness. There are no analytically strict measurements though! There are only continuums -- someone is more xy, while someone else is less xy.
And that obsession with classifications of illnesses is only a reflection of our obsession with mental health -- that being the indicator that in our times, we gravely lack meaning of life.
But instead of interpreting those troubles as being of philosophical nature, they have -- SCIENTIFICALLY, DUH -- been interpreted in terms of medicine. Classically understood that the body is something separate from the mind -- and the result of this is the belief that those "psychological ailments" "just happen" and the person having them has nothing to do with them. This is our Western legacy. We believe stress is something that simply happens to us -- who would dare to consider that stress is the way we react to stressors, and that this way can be changed to something less exhausting, with some effort and without drugs?!
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2"Vanity[a] of vanities," says the Preacher;
"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
3What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun?
4One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever.
5The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,
And hastens to the place where it arose.
6The wind goes toward the south,
And turns around to the north;
The wind whirls about continually,
And comes again on its circuit.
7All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
To the place from which the rivers come,
There they return again.
8All things are full of labor;
Man cannot express it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor the ear filled with hearing.
9That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
10Is there anything of which it may be said,
"See, this is new"?
It has already been in ancient times before us.
11There is no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.
- Ecclesiastes 1
Read the book if you ever get a chance to. It's about the only one with some dose of common sense. Not to mention it was incidentally written by the wisest man to have ever lived: King Solomon. At least that's what they told me in Sunday School back when we used to graze and chew in whatever we were told like. Like.
Ha. I remember a time when I earnestly asked God to give me unlimited wisdom so that I could help make the world a better place. Shockingly enough I received no answer. So much for James 1:5 "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." Smartly enough the author added this disclaimer immediately afterwards: "6But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." Silly me for doubting. God was prepared to answer my prayer if only I hadn't been so unstable in all my ways.
I can't see how anyone can fall hook, line, and sinker for that bullshit. Then again, I can.
Anyway, the point of Ecclesiastes 1 was to reiterate our favoritest topic ever: egoism. All is vanity. Well now you see why assuming each individual is a controller is not only impossible biologically, but also impossible in a universe of holistic determinism. Which reminds me, I need to explain why at all we make the inference of free will. (I'm trying to be thorough here, bear with me). Don't mind my using aposiopesis either; my new favorite word it is.
This 'mental illness' of the West, who in their
right mind would have suspected that it was merely a means of relativizing established by egoists. By people who assume themselves to be 'normal', in a position to redirect lives - put people in straitjackets because.. because they don't act the same, they don't act 'normally'. They are unacceptable. Why, it makes me feel positively. Is this not vanity? Both madman and saneman will return, from dust, to dust. Psychology is vulgar. As with every other change in behavior, we must not look to some phantom homunculus in the brain as the culprit. Stressors come from society, from the environment, and "the way we react to stressors" too, is fully and completely dictated by society, by the environment. (Of course nature too plays a role, we need only to look to our good friend the savante and his stoic response to social stimuli. Then again, the savante's condition too may be influenced wholly by environment. This linear causality crap stinks. Either way we see that no chimerical controller needs to be introduced) While we're at it, let's seal the deal by noting that the level to which one wants to 'improve' one's psychological condition too is fully determined by society, by the environment. We are only dominoes; we are only meant to fall.
But why we do not perceive this holistic causality and instead find the ony 'viable' explanation for change to be the 'I' remains to be explored. As with much else, consciousness is to 'blame'.
This just shows how important other people are for our own sense of having a continous I.
If one lived in a constantly changing environment, and the same people treat him very differently, the sense of having an I would likely be quite weak, its continuity be damaged or even lost.
I think the 'I' has some sort of 'tolerance level' for such situations. I'm not sure how that works so I won't say too much just yet. I'm behind schedule on everything else.
Yes.
The first computers had to have the OS uploaded each time at start-up -- without that, they couldn't function for the purpose they were made. Similarly, memory is there to hold the OS.
Oooh nice analogy!
What a play of words!
If you stop to think -- if you stop, so that you could think in peace -- life stops with you.
If you stop to think -- if you don't think anymore -- life stops with you.
Aww shucks!
Speaking in terms of systems theory, it is the system pressure and system economy that results in people sweraing that they think. Being limited beings, we can't afford to think of things infinitely or with gretest expenditure of time and energy: we must stop somewhere and say "This is how it is".
But this is no way to know truth! I protest! "This is how it is" amounts to "I am an egomaniac and I presume to know what I don't." But don't worry, free will is not entirely destroyed. The free will I detest is not totally useless. There is pleasure and the pursuit of it, and this is where free will remains inviolate. An example:
a) You like ice cream
b) Because of this, you eat ice cream
c) You infer that you ate ice cream of your free will
Well although there are a thousand and one problems with the inference in c, notice that there is no problem in the transition from a to b
even though there is no 'controller' to speak of. The 'I' knows that the
likes ice cream. The 'I' eats ice cream. It is not difficult to see why conclusion c is reached because
it is fully valid based on the information available in a and b. And by this free will remains inviolate.
The problem
A and B is not
all the information available. There are still mysteries which the 'I' is not aware of, or not
conscious of. Because information for a is not available, the 'I' can only say "I like ice cream because.. I like it." This hidden knowledge is either screened or not made available.
Well, I give up here. That was the worst example anyone could have possibly given. If you can think of any scenarios you would like for me to explain with my theory go right ahead and ask. Hopefully you get the main idea and if not, you can always ask.
The reason is a tool, a machine. What you do with it, what you feed in it -- this, you can choose.
Take up quantum astrophysics, perhaps?
What is fed into reason cannot be chosen. This is what makes the whole shebang comical and keeps me giggling. We
think we can choose and we are convinced we can because the available information says we can. And as long as we are willing to ignore our ignorance of (a), we shall forever be in this mindset. Again I remind you that thinking freely is biologically
impossible, as I will demonstrate soon enough. The very absurdity of my conclusion and the fact that the theory can and will account for all we have discussed is enough to
People really should think in more practical terms. Make your own sweater, PJ's, learn a foreign language, ... -- unless you really think that it is so good to just sit there and think, and think, and think ...
Sometimes all we have is ourselves: me, myself, and I.
Do you think I should not be nice to you?
Is that rhetorical?
What else do we have to fall back on when even our knowledge is marred?
The Earth.
Love.
Touche! We will eventually fall back on the earth, from whence we came (if you agree with the wisest man who ever lived).
As for love, I agree with you in part. Love is beyond all understanding, for like everything else, it's all in the neurons. But will it sustain? How long will love satisfy when all is vanity? The man who loves and the man who hates, they sleep together in the earth.
Perhaps what I ask is this: What tangible substitute is there for God?
Every party has a pooper ...
That's because every pooper has a party.
I do see how you come to this conclusion.
For further reference, see E.A. Poe's
The Raven.
I am my own raven.
20Though I were righteous, my own mouth would condemn me;
Though I were blameless, it would prove me perverse.
21"I am blameless, yet I do not know myself;
I despise my life.
- Job 9
Who can know himself?
Expound.
Was she not pretty?
I don't know. Did I merely say she was, did I merely think she was, or was she? I am not sure she is anymore - so was I lying to myself? Why did I believe this then?
What brave man will trust his own knowledge, and give heed to his own speculation?
Yes, and it unreasonableness gets to you because you put reason so high.
Reason is important to me, not by 'choice' but by default. Love and trust are shadows of turning and I can neither love trust nor trust love.
Love for all? Love for one?
How do I
love? It is almost as if this love is a verb, but I know this to be false.
To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.
The highest *utopias* they are, yes.
As long as you are alive, it is potentially impossible to ever come to ultimate consistency in reason.
And so settle for the next best thing. But there are times to love and times to hate. This variableness in life which causes love to falter and hate to wax in the blink of an eye, how can it be trusted? Many have tried and have failed, and others.. Either luck or determinism has been kind to them.
But what is one to do once one sees "our rife inconsistency"?
Free oneself and never go back.
I just wanted to know why you edited some of your posts a month later after they had been posted.
Nothing has changed.
