You HAVE to believe

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by §outh§tar, Dec 18, 2004.

  1. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    I am not entirely capable of loving myself perfectly. So I accept #2) receive forgiveness from an external source.
    And I do progress, even if that just means moving ahead with some hope and not being eaten alive by self-hate. (before anyone chimes in on that - like I said before, there are other ways of avoiding self-hate). I have a hard time #3)loving myself perfectly, and an even harder time with #1) arbitrarily changing my ideas of what is right and wrong.
    As far as multiple personality disorders, retardation, being a baby, voices in your head, etc. - I wouldn't claim that everyone has the same capacity for "free-will", any more than I would claim an animal has responsibility for their actions. There is a continuum, from animal to highly informed, sane, well cared for human-

    That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked ( Luke 12:47-48 ).
    The internet is great. As if I knew where to find this passage.

    Sleepwalking is an interesting point, but it is entirely possible that we areat least semi-conscious during those episodes because people have conversations and try to perform complex behaviors in their "sleep". I was told that one time I woke up in the middle of the night, warily touched my then girfriend's face and said, "you're not a gorilla." Then I went back to sleep. I could have simply interpreted this part of the dream, i.e., the part when I was actually awake, as part of the dream I was having about a gorilla. I tend to think that I was dreaming about a gorilla, I mean the girl wasn't exactly ugly, but I forgot the part of the dream I had when i was asleep as well, so i can't say.
    It would be hard to say that someone who thinks they are dreaming, but is actually functioning in the real world, has free-will. It would be temporary insanity if they actually did something wrong, maybe not legally because it would be impossible to prove, but really they were not aware of their surroundings being real.

    Also, regarding your friend - there isn't any reason why you couldn't at least call your current position, "struggling with your faith". Perhaps, with a lifetime's viewpoint, that will be what it is, perhaps not. It could be entirely true, but at least is definitely not a lie. Who knows, she might want to help save her poor wounded friend by loving him and caring for him. If not, you can't build any kind of relationship on lies anyway, and if you are waiting to tell her about your "problem" with the relationship until she is attached to you, that is pretty messed up. That would be an asshole thing to do. Pure hollywood.
     
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  3. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    It is not self hate, but rather sorrow. As Jesus sorrowed to see His people be so blinded in their presumptions (Matt. 13:15), so it pains me to find out that we are so entrenched in our presumptions that we never think for once about our rife inconsistency, are never concerned about our circularity, do not care that we don't care.

    Are you satisfied with hypocrisy too?

    There goes the inconsistency again. You realize very well the implications of certain of these things, but you dismiss them by concluding there are levels of free-will, where these patients simply have a 'lower' capacity.

    It is this arrogance that irks me. It is unqualified arrogance. Unqualified arrogance rooted in presumptions. Egocentrism.

    Let us all presume free will. When asked to show it, we will say it is self evident and also use circular arguments to cloak our ignorance. Do you insist that you are responsible for something that happens before you are even aware of it?

    And what of he who realizes more has been demanded than is realistic? What of the clay asked to dam the river? Usually, you can't do what you can't do.

    Were you ever conscious during the action?

    If not, how did you know "you" were involved? Is it not ex post that you conjure rationalizations?
    Saying people are semiconscious during sleepwalking is like saying goats can use computers - they just don't know it. That rings as an ad hoc, and it is inconsistent with what has actually been observed of somnambulists.

    Then again the girl might have been ugly to you subconsciously.. Hairy beast down there, was she?

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    Now the obvious implication is that actions can be performed without consciousness. But as my theory goes, it follows too that thoughts can and are performed without consciousness (as seen in Libet's work). Of course this is impossible to personally experience, perhaps technology like the one Libet used will be helpful here.

    I am under the suspicion that consciousness is only necessary for knowledge. As you were not conscious, you did not know any of those actions were taking place. But just because you were not conscious does not mean the actions could not take place. Saying you could have been "semi-conscious" serves nothing but to beg the question (did I mention it was ad hoc?)

    Now unless you are suffering from some variation of Tourettes, there was some point or some reason behind your saying "You're not a gorilla". From this we may infer that a thought preceded the action - although you were never aware of it. If a thought did not precede the action, then free will is invalidated all the same for again, consciousness is shown to be unnecessary for action to occur. But that is not what we are leaning towards, we are more interested in the thought, and the fact that it took place. (As far as 'fact' goes, it is quite factual to me)

    One man's reality is another man's fantasy, so I see.

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    If we can lie to ourselves and say we do things we don't even know how to do, I'm not sure how it's a strech to incorporate the same morals in social life. But then I'm just playing Devil's advocate today..
     
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  5. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    Then we are in the same boat comrade!

    If you knew, you would be like unto God.
     
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  7. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    I am very aware of myself as a person who does not adhere perfectly to my moral ideals. I make this pretty clear to people. Also, I don't have any expectations for other people to be perfect, or ask them to. I do appreciate consideration from others in return for the consideration I show them, but I don't expect it from people who haven't shown a history of it.

    What makes you think I am proud of my free-will? It is my only source of blame, really. If you want me to feel guilty that I see a mentally retarded person as being less responsible for their actions, you are just slagging all discernment. It isn't like someone who is drunk commiting an offense, they are still responsible, because they were the cause of their incapacitiation. I guess that brings us to the reality of our existence, you don't have to believe anything, but you still have to choose something.

    Anything I plan to make happen, whether a millisecond or a year in advance, if I exert energy toward it and the thing occurs, it is my responsibility, at least partially. You can say this is an outgrowth of all that came before and is out of my control, but how do you explain choice? You still have yet to put forth an agency for all this choosing we do. (Hey, how did we transfer the other thread over here? I guess it doesn't matter.)


    How do you know when you have failed? Most people's failures come at the point when they give up. Who are you to say what you are or are not capable of, based on previous experience? Maybe the clay is only being asked to dam a few inches of the river for a few minutes, but for some reason it thinks it has to be hoover dam. Maybe it was misled.


    I may have been. I can't remember. But we forget most of our dreams, why not that? It would be interesting to see if a sleepwalker/talker could be taught something, they do interact and have somewhat rational conversations - my friend's daughter was sleepwalking and was about to go out the front door, but couldn't figure out how to undo the deadbolt (although when awake she can), and my friend says during times like this she will answer questions, and was able to be told to go back to bed. It is hard to say how conscious, or unconscious, she was.

    I think you are using a goat to type on the computer, at least so you claim. You can pretend to be a robot if you wish, but there will always be ex post facto to come along later, hounding you like a dog, telling you that you are responsible.
    Maybe the somnambulist is in a conscious state, but has no sense of self-awareness. Like a higher meditation or something. Since they are not used to functioning in this relation to the world, they function poorly, and of course don't remember themselves doing anything, since they didn't have any perception of themselves at the time. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.


    Actually, I don't fantasize about having to lie, or even tell half-truths, or just let people think what they think without intervening. It is nice to be liked though, so i understand your predicament. I was just rationalizing being truthful to your friend.
    But you are obviously an expert rationalizer already, or you wouldn't be trying so hard to rationalize away all responsibility for your actions, quite a herculean task.
     
  8. water the sea Registered Senior Member

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    While we're at it: Welcome to the Truman World!


    Well, there is a way to make sense of this. See the theory of discourse.


    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?


    Yes. What I've been saying ...

    (And this ex post/ex ante distinction -- it's really useful, isn't it? See, and you were so much against this Paulinka language!)


    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.


    You know damn well where the problem with that question is!
    In the definitions of "I" and "think".


    You are so going to regret this.


    Yes. I once spoke about Pavlovian dogs and how causality is a matter of inference.


    I'm not being myself these days ...


    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.


    Right in regards to what? By whose standards?


    Yes.


    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."


    When we confront different discourses about the same thing, the above happens, yes.


    Yes. And comparing languages gives interesting results, as I have pointed out in my PM to you about the draft of your theory.


    Or we can say that language itself already is a form of agreement; an expression of agreement.


    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?


    How could we ever know?


    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?


    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.


    Not me though.


    Like I've said before, I'm not knowledgeable in this field, so I can't say much here.


    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.


    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.


    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.


    Only when I look into the mirror.


    For further reference, see Dylan Thomas' That sanity be kept.


    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.


    http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=44767


    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.


    Oh yes. The history of philosophy is full of theories about that.

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    I never said so.


    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.


    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.


    And who has written you this? A ... phantom? Wait, phantoms exist too.


    *gasp*
    *ahhh*
    How do you know it is by God?


    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?


    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?)


    Ad hom, ad hom, ad hom!


    And you want first hand knowledge? Divine intervention.


    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.


    The "absurdity of free will" is there for you because of your definition of free will.


    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?!


    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.


    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.


    Ah, hypnosis ...


    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.


    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".


    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?


    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 ...


    Do you think I should not be nice to you?


    What else do we have to fall back on when even our knowledge is marred?
    The Earth.
    Love.


    Every party has a pooper ...


    I do see how you come to this conclusion.

    For further reference, see E.A. Poe's The Raven.


    Expound.
    Was she not pretty?


    Yes, and it unreasonableness gets to you because you put reason so high.


    Love.



    The highest *utopias* they are, yes.
    As long as you are alive, it is potentially impossible to ever come to ultimate consistency in reason.


    But what is one to do once one sees "our rife inconsistency"?


    Consider yourself lucky that I am not there where you are. If I were, you would experience some free will, first hand.


    I just wanted to know why you edited some of your posts a month later after they had been posted.
     
  9. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    Bump. Will reply to this soon. Sorry.
     
  10. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    You don't live up to your standards but you expect others to unto you as you have done unto them. Ok.


    Why, the choices are made for you. Does the drunk choose to be in dissatisfactory circumstances which lead him to look to the bottle for pleasure? Let me ask you this:

    How do you choose to want to be drunk?


    ---

    Would you choose to drink if you were satisfied and content with sobriety? Now again. Do you choose to want to drink, or is the choice made for you?

    I was tired of TruthSeeker parading his stupidity.

    But again, you say "choice". What choice? A choice by you.

    Who are "you"? Can you point to this 'you' who chooses, can you identify this 'you'? Do you actually know this you, or is it some abstraction? And if it is, can you reasonably claim that this 'you' chooses? Would not doing so count as arguing from ignorance?

    I have put forth an explanation (incomplete as of yet) for choices (see earlier response to water). But I have eliminated any person, or individual, or 'controller' of will and choice. You see, just because you think you think, does not mean you think.

    The clay can only go by what it knows. For Peter, did he not know that man does not walk on water? For Thomas, did he not know that no one raises from the dead?

    Insanity would be hope. Hoping for success where failure sleeps with fate.

    Of course the somnambulist is in a conscious state. There is no such thing as being 'unconscious', as if consciousness were a switch to be turned off and on. All you have to do, is think outside the box. Eliminate your friend's daughter, separate her from the actions and think. What leads a person who is not conscious of their actions (this is different from not being conscious at all), to act?

    Your friend's daughter not knowing how to unlock the deadbolt is very interesting. I predicted such things in my theory. It also shows that she indeed was conscious of some things (that there was a deadbolt that needed to be unlocked, for example).

    There aren't levels of consciousness. Consciousness is a constant. You are always conscious. To put is simply, just because you are not aware of something does not mean you are not conscious of it. For example, you feel you are being followed. You are not directly aware of anyone shadowing you, but you are most probably conscious of the fact because you heard a footstep or saw a shadow or a reflection that did not seem relevant to you. But in such a situation, would you choose to be aware of certain things and unaware of other things? Of course not!

    All you had was your knowledge that told you that you were being followed. You don't know how the knowledge got there, you don't know how you knew that, what caused you to believe that. But you thought it anyway. So, again. Was it you who willed the thought? Was it you who willed yourself to be selectively aware of your environment?

    And if you can't remember whether or not you were conscious, why not? Don't you know how to remember? It should be so easy if there is indeed a "you" responsible for remembering. If you are truly the one who remembers, why do you not know how to remember? Why can you not remember now? Why did your friend's daughter not know how to unlock the deadbolt while sleepwalking, if "she" really knew how to unlock the deadbolt?

    It is not 'you' and it was not 'her'. But knowledge tells you it was, just as knowledge might have told you you were being followed. Are you responsible for what knowledge tells you? Ever?

    That's not what I was implying but ok.

    Oh no. I am only observing what seems to be glaring inconsistencies in knowledge and our knowledge of knowledge. And trust me, the solution is simpler than water. Everytime I think of it, I laugh.

    Later.
     
  11. Cyperium I'm always me Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry, but you haven't shown it is impossible.

    It IS possible to control thoughts and to not follow damaging desire.

    It IS possible to believe, you have to find it, any other person would make it impossible, but for you it is possible.

    YOU look at atheists and say they can't believe, you have to look at them, instead of looking within yourself. Excuse me if I'm reading you too much, but I think it is because you all your time here really didn't think any atheist could repent, and thus became one yourself. At least it's stable you think, at least I don't have to fight anymore. Doing wrong seemed so easy, at least you can now achieve something. Wasn't that what you REALLY wanted?

    Defender of faith.
     
  12. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    Hello Cyperium,

    Pleasant to see you back on sciforums. It has been a long time.

    You have made the same mistake many others have made. It was not because of sciforums that I let go of Christianity. I think I stated my reasons in the other thread and if you have any genuine questions I'll be happy to answer. I am afraid all that is evident in your post is misguided pronounciations and gross simplification.

    Now as for what I really wanted. For the last time, I did NOT leave Christianity because I wanted to. It was a regretful decision for me at the time and it still is to a certain extent even in this moment. But my will, how it was overriden and subdued for the greater good. I have come to be more respectful of what I do not understand, lest pride scale my eyes.

    And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye?

    - Luke 6:41
     
  13. QUEST EONS Registered Senior Member

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    southstar,.. I just want to say how much I enjoy reading your posts. I myself am a back and forth atheist/agnostic. I was raised christian, I was christian until 24 yrs old, and when I began to question I found no answers and left chirstianity. Whenever I read the debates on this website you seem to be the most human and the most logical and I Identify with that frame of mind. Of course this may not mean much, but I even use some of your previous agruments when talking with fellow christian friends, who believe christianity is the obvious answer.

    Keep up the QUEST for truth in this brief lifetime.
     
  14. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    4,832
    This one's a bit old but I decided to post it anyway while I overcome my writer's block.
    --------------------------------------------------

    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.

    Must I Google everything myself? Enlighten me. Pour water into this empty vessel

    I learn from you.

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    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.

    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*

    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.

    It was a compliment. I swear.



    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.

    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*

    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.


    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*

    An agreement with who, or what?


    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.


    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.

    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).

    Why even argue? I can neither validate nor invalidate your knowledge.
    But I will say this: You're weird.

    You are right and I had better refine my statement. Truth is based on the senses.

    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.


    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?


    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.


    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.

    Don't mistake me for those quacks.


    Don't worry I am speaking generally and might sometimes use "you" to carry my point.


    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.

    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".

    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.

    Society has put it into my mind. As with all knowledge, one thing led to another and here. I am.


    For me, I will relish in my antiestablishmentarianism. Freedom must follow, for surely the sheep too want to be free do they not?

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    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..

    How can there be an ad hom when man does not exist? Where then lies the real logical fallacy? Reification disqualifies many arguments.


    Savantes must be snacking on the tree of knowledge then.. lucky bastards. We wouldn't know God if he smacked us upside the head.

    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.


    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)

    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'.

    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.


    Oooh nice analogy!


    Aww shucks!


    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.


    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

    Sometimes all we have is ourselves: me, myself, and I.

    Is that rhetorical?


    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?

    That's because every pooper has a party.


    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?

    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?

    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.


    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.

    Free oneself and never go back.

    Nothing has changed.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2005
  15. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,999
    quest said -"when talking with fellow christian friends, who believe christianity is the obvious answer."

    That goes along with this thread's title.

    There is no obvious answer unless you are ignorant of the opposite position.
     
  16. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,833
    If you won't forgive and trust yourself, live life yourself, live it purposefully, you will wax and wane along with love and hatred - a leaf on the ocean - at the mercy of every idle passer-by. And your prayers will be drowned.
     
  17. water the sea Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,442
    Nebulous.

    Why do all those things?
     
  18. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,833
    So that it would stop being nebulous, and have some real meaning for you. Otherwise life is nebulous.
     
  19. water the sea Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,442
    You make me want to die.

    You say "If you won't forgive and trust yourself, live life yourself, live it purposefully, you will wax and wane along with love and hatred - a leaf on the ocean - at the mercy of every idle passer-by. And your prayers will be drowned." -- which is just stating the obvious.

    How am I to forgive myself, trust, myself, and so on? And most of all, why?
    I have nothing to look forward to -- and you tell me I should pretend I have? Alright. But why?
     
  20. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,833
    Well, you have asked me to explain the obvious. All I'm hearing from you is how miserable and resentful you are, without a purpose, and you ask me why?

    You can't pretend to have purpose - it has to be found somewhere. I don't know where you might find it outside God, so if you don't like my answer ask someone else. God loves you as much as the rest of his creation, but for that love to mean anything to you it must be lived. I've tried to share it with you, so that you don't have to imagine what it's like, have to pretend you know it, or put up with some fantasy idea of it. But only you can tell me what that was worth to you.
     
  21. water the sea Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,442
    Why can I not feel that love?

    Or does God's love for His creatures consist of not letting the Sun burn hotter? Does God's love for His creatures consist of not beating us more -- when He surely could?


    Lived by whom?


    I assure you I'd have to pretend to feel God's love, to know what it is like.
    All I can come up with is a fantasy idea of God's love.
     
  22. Jenyar Solar flair Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,833
    Of course not. And neither does it consist in making you feel like giggling at butterflies all the time. It is possible to feel unloved even with the love of your life sitting next to you with his or her arms around you.

    How many of the qualities described in 1 Cor. 13 would you understand and appreciate?

    By all concerned, especially yourself. If one doesn't practice love, it won't exist for the people who have to do with you.

    God's love has eternal consequences, and stretches across all people and nations - it lies as far into the future as it lies in the past. In that sense it provides the context for knowing it yourself; you won't learn or experience much of it in isolation. It's like getting to know someone who's lived forever. If you think it's a fantasy, speak to people who've been loved by Him, read their testimonies, listen to their stories. David's psalms is a good place to start, if you're not in similar company.

    You've asked me before what forgiveness is. That means you haven't really understood what it means to be forgiven by God. It could mean you're still enquiring about God, finding out whether to believe in Him; in his promises. But you are talking as if you already believed in Him, or did you expect the rewards of faith in advance? I make this observation tentatively, because I don't know your position. I'm not attacking your sincerity; I simply want to know where you find yourself at the moment, because the security that comes with trust doesn't come before you trust.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2005
  23. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,832
    Hello Jenyar,

    Thank you for your reply. But I think all this deserves a new thread so I'll work on that instead.

    But water is right: easier said than done.

    How are we to do these things? I don't know
     

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