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#11
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Re: Free Will Challenge
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And I really appreciate that you accept me as your peer. And I'm not being facetious. |
#12
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Re: A Free Will Challenge
Hi Tom,
Please don't concern yourself about me hanging around. I think Fred's last response illustrates very well my premise that our strong beliefs have far more power to determine how we see the world, our conclusions about what we see and our behavior, than our intellect. Without someone here so committed to their beliefs as Fred, so unphased by reasonable arguments, it would be more difficult to make my point. Fred, this is not an underhanded insult. The world is full of people with such strong beliefs as yours who are ready to defend them at all costs. The cost of unreasonable discourse is not a high price to pay when one's strong identity beliefs are at stake. Whatever any of us believes, no matter how reasonable, it can turn into dogma if we or it is attacked and our identity feels threatened. At first I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt that you were here to open yourself to opposing views and test your own. I now see that your motive is more likely to carry the banner of your beliefs into battle in the den of the atheists and to show no quarter. But that's OK because I still think you illustrate my EP premise very well. Note: I am a little disappointed that others here would rather debate the existence of God with you than discuss these EP concepts that I have tried to bring in to the discussion. So far you have not elicited in me the need to defend my beliefs at all costs. If that happened I probably would leave, humiliated. However, I am definitely subject to those feelings under the right conditions. When I first joined here some of my identity beliefs were threatened by some things that JimB said in a couple of his posts. And I responded in a very unreasonable way. Perhaps the difference between us is that I see the danger in that and I regret it. Maybe some day you can get there too. You'll find that life is far more pleasant when everyone in the world is not either an enemy or an ally. However, I understand that for you right now, your beliefs are terribly threatened by the Godless world around you and having a pleasant life is the least of your concerns. I hope this post does not sound too condenscending but I'm really trying to be honest. I don't see the point of these forums if a person hides their true observations and conclusions. Margaret Last edited by Margaret McGhee; February 16th, 2006 at 12:36 PM.. Reason: Spelling |
#13
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Re: Free--can Fred get there too?
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Alas, perhaps “some day [I] can get there too,†and “find that life is far more pleasant when everyone in the world is not either an enemy or an ally.†Thank you so much Margaret. |
#14
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Re: A Free Will Challenge
Fred, I was just getting ready to write this but saw your last post.
Despite the dismissive tone of my last post, I wanted to say that even though your reference to LeDoux doesn't rebut my negation of your assertion that similarity of bahavior indicates lack of free will, I think it (downward causation) is an interesting point on its own that deserves consideration. BTW - Thanks for turning me on to LeDoux. I'm about half way through Synaptic Self. I'd be further along but I am stuck like an old scratched 78 on Chapter 9, The Lost World, which I have now re-read several times. (That was you wasn't it. I'm sorry to whoever I failed to credit if I got that wrong.) I'm very busy on a project right now but I'll try to think some more about "downward causation" and get back in the next day or two. Regards, Margaret Last edited by Margaret McGhee; February 16th, 2006 at 02:47 PM.. Reason: Question arose |
#15
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Re: A Free Will Challenge
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But keep reading. In his final chapter, “Who Are You,†LeDoux writes: Quote:
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#16
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Re: A Free Will Challenge
Hi Fred,
You are right that I have a belief that free will does not exist. Actually, I have a strong higher level identity belief that supernatural forces do not exist - and the free will you speak of seems to require some of those. So my tendency is to look for reasons you must be wrong rather than reasons you could be right. But my current belief that free will does not exist is a good example of how higher order beliefs determine what new beliefs we will admit into our minds. They've gotta feel good in there with what I already believe. Otherwise I'll have to deal with cognitive dissonance - and maybe even the pain of psoriasis. I have an emotional attachment to ideas that are falsifiable but survive all attempts. Give me a definition of free will that survives that test and I'll be on your side. Margaret |
#17
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Re: A Free Will Challenge
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Take your own definition of human “illusion of free will,†or whatever you’d call it, and show that it is indeed falsifiable, and then that it survives all attempts. Additionally, if indeed we do lack free will, and all we have are our subjective mental constructs, you’ll also have to show how we could ever “know†what’s real and unreal, what’s true and untrue, and how we could ever “know†whether a definition of something is truly falsifiable. Now once you’ve proved to yourself that you can’t do any of that, you’ll then see that the opposite is true, that we do have some amount of free will. But I doubt you’ll attempt any of that b/c, as you’ve noted, your “higher order beliefs†seem to preclude human free will; you’re effectively locked in. And I doubt that LeDoux’s “downward causation†will have any impact on you. Oh well. |
#18
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Re: A Free Will Challenge
Fred, This is my follow up to "downward causation". As I expected this is very interesting and relevant to the concept of free will. (Much more than your "similarity of behavior" hypothesis.
I'm putting it here so I can find it easier. I'll address your "Falsify your own beliefs, Pookie (a gratuitous Soupy Sales reference)" argument later. From your post Feb. 15 at 5:55 AM LeDoux Quote:
This statement encapsulates several things that deserve examination IMO. The main one is that LeDoux assumes that in the Trilogy our thinking brain deserves to be in a position of control over our base emotions and motivations. He believes like everyone that disfunction, unhappines and strife in human affairs is caused when we don't think good enough or when we ignore our good thinking and follow those base emotions and motivations instead. This is the paradigm that exists in our culture and probably has since our intellect became self aware. It forms the basis of almost every school of human psychology and much of philosophy. It is the BIG MEME of western and even much eastern thought. I know I'm yelling into a hurricane here but I think that it is wrong. Our intellect is a late addition to our CNS. It only adds another input (albeit a highly refined and useful one) to our emotional decision computer - the same basic system all our mammalian relatives have. And that input isn't our logical conclusions, it's the emotional markers we subconsciously give to them. So, we are still entirely emotional decision-making creatures. The reason we have that BIG MEME belief is because it matches what our conscious minds experience and it feeds such pleasurable emotions into our emotional decision computer when we contemplate our existence. We have that BIG MEME because our conscious mind only sees it's own activity. It doesn't see our subconscious emotional decision process as it works. So it thinks IT is in charge. After we decide not to jump from a tall building to prove that God exists it says, "I really could have done it if I wanted to." It is lying because that lie feels so good and maintains our illusion of intellectual control. The truth is, if the sum of our emotional inputs said jump only then would we have done it and our intellect and it's silly ego would have gone along for the ride. We can do no other than what the sum of our emotional inputs dictate. (My hypothesis.) The BIG MEME does make a case for free will. It says that if we think good enough, perhaps informed by a God who put us here and knows what's best, then we can wrest control from our animal selves and go on to lead the good and moral life - i.e. not screwing everything that comes along, as you put it. But I still say the BIG MEME is a conceit of our conscious mind who so wants to believe that it is in control - because it feels so damned good. Even LeDoux buys in although I suspect that's just because he hasn't met me yet. Actually, I'm sure he bought in as a child and has held that belief all his life as almost everyone in our culture has. As a scientist he has no choice now but to integrate it somehow into his theories. Although I don't think he has thought this one meme through very rigorously it doesn't distract much from the very objective and valuable work he has done on The Synaptic Self - and it offers a fairly harmless paean to his more philosophicly inclined readers. I know I'm just stating what I believe and trying to show why it is plausible. I know I'm not proving anything. I'm working on that though and this discussion is helping me figure that out. Thanks everyone for humoring me. Margaret Last edited by Margaret McGhee; February 17th, 2006 at 04:22 PM.. Reason: Typo |
#19
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Re: A Free Will Challenge
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But if you’re convinced otherwise, then so be it. However, in a world as you perceive it, all there can ever be are our illusions, our subjective constructs; and even if we happen to agree on something, like “BIG MEMES,†so what? It’d be nothing more than a consensus of our illusions, our subjective constructs. Or, as Shakespeare’s Macbeth opined: Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player |
#20
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Re: A Free Will Challenge
OK, I'll play the part of the Hurricane for the first act. I can't get behind your saying:
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Yes, you're saying that the final decision is entirely emotional and the intellect reasons (perhaps without emotion) outside the decision-making process; but that still means that it has an effect on the final decision. |
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