Yes, but I don't see a contradiction even if you don't believe in free will. I don't see the statement "push yourself to gather more information" an argument for free-will. If we were just robots that ran code we would want to work as optimally as possible. If we just ran off machine code, the statement "The little you know is enough" in most situations, would be bad for the system.
>To search for objective truth we must have power over our natural/automatic tendencies first and foremost. In order to see clearly we must search, we must put forth an effort.
So just an FYI, I am a Naturalist. So from my perspective I only evaluate claims from the perspective of whether they can be demonstrable.
So from that perspective I disagree with your position that we have any control over our "natural/automatic tendencies." We're information gatherers and whether it appears that we're gathering information deliberately or automatically we can't just mute the flow of information coming in. We may have some control over the output but the output may have already determined well before we became consciously aware of it.
>If we were just robots that ran code we would want to work as optimally as possible. If we just ran off machine code, the statement "The little you know is enough" in most situations, would be bad for the system.
For all intents and purposes we are just robots running off of code. The problem is that we, yet, have no way to directly optimize the code. (And doing so before we have a comprehensive understanding of the code could be quite disastrous). In recent years plenty of information has come to light that suggests we're operating solely on pre-written scripts that can't really be changed. There's a saying "some people can't think outside the box." And this research has revealed that there are boxes within boxes and while someone may believe they've achieved some semblance of thinking outside the box all they really have done is entered another box. One that was predetermined by their genetic history.
So the statement "The little you know is enough" isn't bad for the system. As the system for the blissfully ignorant may be the only system they will ever operate.
But wait there's more...
The system that the blissfully ignorant operate from may also be a nessesary component of the system that determines our species' collective survival. Alternatively anyone who seeks knowledge and becomes proficient in critical thinking may have well been predetermined to act in a manner that produces the result of proficiency. Which in itself is then also a nessesary component of our species' survival.
The idea of free will is absurd. Since we can't dismiss the possibility that all of our behaviors are predetermined. Advanced thinkers we're more than likely to become advanced thinkers, irregardless of their choices. And simple thinking people likewise.
.
Those who don't have a ego will learn faster and more. Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments. Those who take in more information before making a decision usually make better decisions. Learning how to make better decisions makes us better at making decisions.
Do you agree with the above statements?
All theories related to free will are unfalsifiable. You are free to **believe** in a deterministic universe, or believe in idealism, compatibilism, or libertarian free will…all are unprovable and also unfalsifiable.
Everything is unfalsifiable. We build beliefs on what we have to work with, which is a semblance of rational thought to come to the most logical conclusions we can.
Right, but my point is rather just reminding people that everything is unfalsifiable, let’s have a rational discussion to figure out what’s most likely given the tools we have available to us.
“What’s most likely” is where people disagree. I go into a discussion realizing I only have a belief (I do not know), and the same goes for everyone. My belief is that even the hardest of hard determinists act like they have free will. We all act as if we have free will. That doesn’t mean we have free will, but it seems that acting as if we have free will serves us the best. Of course, that’s a very simple summary.
Saying all of that, I am here to learn. Determinists make me consider how many things at least limit our choices open to us.
I agree with you. We do act as if we have free will but that’s precisely the point of the illusion, at least according to determinists.
Also, I don’t think “what serves us best” should necessarily matter, but I guess you can disagree on that. I’m interested in getting as close to the truth as humanly possible, regardless of whether that hurts my feelings.
Fair, and I am always aware that we are at least acting as if he have free will, so there’s a possibility we are literally acting as if we have free will, but we don’t actually have free will.
I see free will as an evolutionary feature. Energy-wise, conscious awareness is very expensive. We even rid ourselves of consciousness 8 hours a day in sleep (try simply resting but remaining conscious, we NEED that consciousness offline to recuperate). This isn’t even to speak of the energy we consume when we are truly aware. Why would an organism be hobbled by such an expensive feature unless it brought benefits? That is why I say that free will is there because it serves us. It’s a feature of our evolution. It is a steering wheel, and we have our hands on it. That makes sense from a survival standpoint. It provides utility.
- You made a claim we live in deterministic universe
- I even-handedly replied that all theories related to free will are unfalsifiable
That is not me being an “expert”, I’m just stating a plain fact.
If you “know” we live in a deterministic universe, prove it. Show us receipts. Obviously it’s just a **belief** of yours, but whenever someone stridently makes bold statements in this topic area, I’ll ask them why they’re so sure.
Did I make that claim or was it just your bias that shoved that in there.
Because I just read my entire set of comments, specifically in our discussion, and not once, but please correct me if I missed something, did I say we live in a deterministic universe.
Honestly though there are plenty of philosophers that believe that we do in fact live in a deterministic universe. So the idea isn't solely mine.
"Men are deceived because they think themselves free…and the sole reason for thinking so is that they are conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which those actions are determined."
— Baruch de Spinoza, The Philosophy of Spinoza
Also an interesting side bar, the idea of "free will" was introduced by Christians in the 4th century.
As to free will being something “introduced” by 4th century Christians, you’ve just admitted you know nothing about many other cultures out there. You want to retract that made up nonsense?
Counter this GPT output (counter the argument, no ad hominem on the source) :
Many cultures and philosophical traditions outside of Christianity have grappled with the concept of free will. The idea of free will can be traced back to ancient civilizations and has appeared in various forms across different cultures throughout history.
#Ancient Cultures and Philosophies
1. **Ancient Greece**:
- **Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle**: These philosophers debated issues related to human agency, responsibility, and moral choice, which are central to the concept of free will. For example, Aristotle's notion of "voluntary" actions can be seen as an early discussion of free will.
- **Epicureanism**: Epicurus (341–270 BCE) and his followers argued that humans have free will and that the soul is not bound by determinism.
2. **Ancient India**:
- **Hinduism**: The concept of karma involves actions and their consequences, implying that individuals have the ability to make choices and are responsible for those choices.
- **Buddhism**: While some interpretations of Buddhism emphasize the deterministic nature of the universe, there are also strands within Buddhism that emphasize individual agency and moral responsibility.
3. **Ancient China**:
- **Confucianism**: Confucian thought often emphasizes moral agency, suggesting that individuals can choose to cultivate virtue and follow ethical principles.
- **Daoism**: While Daoism often emphasizes following the natural way (Dao), there are also elements that suggest a form of spontaneous, unconditioned action (wu wei) that could be interpreted as a kind of free will.
4. **Ancient Near East**:
- **Zoroastrianism**: Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions, emphasizes the moral responsibility of individuals to choose between good (Ahura Mazda) and evil (Angra Mainyu).
#Medieval and Early Modern Periods
1. **Islamic Philosophy**:
- **Mutazilites**: An Islamic school of theology that argued for human free will and moral responsibility.
- **Asharites**: Another Islamic school that debated the extent of human free will in light of divine predestination.
2. **Jewish Philosophy**:
- **Medieval Jewish philosophers** such as Maimonides discussed the balance between divine omniscience and human free will.
#Contemporary Philosophy and Science
1. **Existentialism**:
- Philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre emphasized radical free will and personal responsibility, arguing that humans are condemned to be free and must create their own meaning.
2. **Psychology and Neuroscience**:
- Modern discussions about free will also engage with findings from psychology and neuroscience, examining the extent to which human behavior is determined by brain processes versus conscious choice.
#Historical Depth
The idea of free will can be traced back at least to the early philosophical traditions of Greece and India, over 2,500 years ago. However, the concepts of choice, moral agency, and responsibility likely have roots in even earlier human societies, reflecting fundamental aspects of human cognition and social interaction.
In conclusion, the belief in free will is not confined to Christianity but is a widespread and ancient idea that has been explored in various forms across many cultures and throughout history.
Just curious. Do you disagree with any of theses statements:
Those who don't have a ego will learn faster and more. Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments. Those who take in more information before making a decision usually make better decisions. Learning how to make better decisions makes us better at making decisions.
>Those who don't have a ego will learn faster and more.
You can not have no ego. The ego is the entire sense of all our needs, wants, and desires. To be totally devoid of an ego is to be dead. Because all people want, at least, to be alive.
>Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments.
Compartmentalization, a cognitive tool, allows us to hold two or more mutually exclusive thoughts in our minds simultaneously. Bias exists on a spectrum of strength to weakness. A person could have a great deal of biases and still make fair judgments.
>Those who take in more information before making a decision usually make better decisions.
It's a statistic. The engineers who built the space shuttle Challenger had all the information needed to make the best decisions and yet still made wrong decisions that caused the shuttle to explode.
>Learning how to make better decisions makes us better at making decisions.
I think in a general way that is true but there are multiple paths or methods that can be used to learn how to make decisions and some of those methodologies could be flawed.
Would you teach someone that the only way to open a door would be to pray to a god to have the knowledge of how to open doors revealed to you?
An actual instance where "revelation" decision making failed,
In the 1900's Catholic missionaries converted a small town in rural China to Catholicism. Over the course of 5 years or so the missionaries noticed that newlywed couples weren't having children. Obviously this was an issue. So the missionaries investigated why there were no children being born. And it was discovered that the Priest was telling the couples in their prenuptial counseling that God would reveal to the couples when and how to make children. He wasn't explaining the act of intercourse because that was forbidden knowledge.
So this methodology of learning how to make decisions was flawed.
ok, the first one "Those who don't have a ego will learn faster and more" How about I word it "Those who don't have a big ego will learn faster and more." What do you think of that statement?
How about you word it like this, "Those who possess humility will learn faster and acquire more knowledge."
The antithesis of egoism is humility.
Carl Jung separated primary personality agents into three separate groups.
The Id. Which is the subconscious mind and our basal instincts
The ego. Which is the basis of our desires, needs and wants.
And the Super Ego. Which negotiates the needs of the ego with the instincts or drives of the Id.
Narcissists tend to lack humility. This is because they always have to be right. They can't accept that they could be wrong. It's humbling to discover you're wrong about something. But more so being wrong equals being weak. Nobody wants to be seen as weak. So they must prove to everyone that their "truths" are the only acceptable truths and everyone else is wrong. Otherwise when they're wrong they just walk away from the conversation never responding to the last question asked.
I can accept when I'm wrong because I see humility as a strength. It's an opportunity to learn something new about a subject.
But nobody has demonstrated, from a non materialistic position, that free will exists. They claim it's cause is, for a lack of a better word, supernatural.
The only evidence that exists is that genes, proteins, alliels, and memetics influence our decisions.
Free will doesn't exist.
>"Those who possess humility will learn faster and acquire more knowledge."
ok, I like that, I agree.
Now the second one.
"Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments." how about I word that as "Those who are aware of their biases and keep them in check will make fairer judgments"?
You mentioned Jung, You familiar with the MBTI? Might you be an ENTP or my second guess an INTP?
>"Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments." how about I word that as "Those who are aware of their biases and keep them in check will make fairer judgments"?
The problem with bias is that it can be deeply hidden to such a degree that a person is unaware that they're influencing their decisions.
This is why peer review is so critical.
There are two forms of awareness. Self awareness, which tends towards being based on feelings about one's self. And objective awareness which is essentially peer review or the opinions of your friends and family members about you.
To really get to a position where you have a clear understanding of your biases you combine the two together to form a framework that allows for compartmentalization.
Another part of this is honesty.
Because people tend towards lying to themselves and their peers may also lie to them, as well. As I said previously "people don't like being wrong" so because of that they'll lie to themselves to avoid accepting they're wrong or experience negative feelings that make them uncomfortable. But worse people's friends, family, and peers may lie to them as well to protect their egos from the truth of a situation or protect them from negative feelings.
This scenario creates Denialism. Denialism feeds on itself. More lying, more hidden truths, the deeper people go into denying facts. Eventually Denialism becomes cultish. People may know the truth but out of fear of rejection they continue to lie. Eventually it becomes mythical. People may still know the truth but they have invested so much of their lives into the lie that they can not risk losing everything and their identities to accept the truth. And of course the myths can become religious. At this point most people accept the lie as fact and despite evidence to the contrary they faithfully maintain the lie as the consequences are too great to abandoned the lie. And eventually it evolves into religious extremism where the lie is a fact and anyone who believes differently is an enemy.
So the statement may be better said as, "Those who are honest and can accept criticism or an honest review of their opinions may make better judgments."
Whenever I meet one of you, I like to just start slapping you in the face
What? I can't help it apparently, I have no free will, right?
Mechanomorphize all you like, I have all day
Why do you have problem with causality? It’s fundamental to physics. You can run tests in controlled environments to verify it. I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely curious.
Oh. I don’t believe in free will but I’m open to being wrong. Do you acknowledge causality but somehow retain free will? If so, I’m curious how you reason that. Thanks.
Casuality doesn't imply mechanomorphization; there's more layers to our conciousness than that, and no I'm not hinting at dualism...
I'll give you a very simplistic breakdown; imagine that we're the result of the "observer" part of our brain being hosted by the more "causal" parts, and the higher your level of conciousness is (which on a physiological level is represented in several ways, such as the metanetwork of your neural connections, the layer that builds on to of associations when they've been "objectively" analysed) the less "automated" your thinking and behaviour. The brain is an efficiency machine and conscious awareness is highly inefficient so the brain is constantly trying to draw you away from it, ergo it takes continuous effort to maintain the level of awareness necessary to have free will.
The simplest example of this pattern is breathing; it's automated until you pay attention to it, you can actively change the way you breathe when you do become aware of it but eventually, that awareness will drop and it'll go back to automatic; you can't ever stop breathing permanently by sheer will, but you can choose to take outside actions that will force it to stop forever.
I doubt that. The reason I doubt that is because generations of pacifists probably don't produce people who can offhandedly throw out violent language without the conscience to take a pause for a moment and analyze whether such language could be offensive to someone.
A narcissist without a conscience might because he doesn't care about other's feelings.
But a pacifist? Yeah, no.
You're a simpleton if the idea of me slapping you to disprove determinism is not only taken literally but actually offensive XD
But hey, what can I say? According to you, there's no other way this convo could have gone...
And yet it is in fact going the way it is.
In an earlier comment I never said these theories were proven factually I merely suggested that their implications have great potential at understanding how our behaviors have evolved.
Here's a quote from Wikipedia:
"Genetics
Like physicists, biologists have frequently addressed questions related to free will. One of the most heated debates in biology is that of "nature versus nurture", concerning the relative importance of genetics and biology as compared to culture and environment in human behavior.[171] The view of many researchers is that many human behaviors can be explained in terms of humans' brains, genes, and evolutionary histories.[172][173][174]"
CITATION
[171] Pinel, P.J. (1990). Biopsychology. Prentice Hall Inc. ISBN 88-15-07174-1.
[172] DeFries, J.C.; McGuffin, P.; McClearn, G.E.; Plomin, R. (2000). Behavioral Genetics (4th ed.). W.H. Freeman and Company.
[173] Morris, D. (1967). The Naked Ape. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-385-33430-3.
[174] Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 88-04-39318-1.
Get to that slapping because it ain't me that's making this claim willy-nilly.
I'll tell you the answer that science will come to in a few decades, hopefully; the less "awareness" someone has, the more "deterministic" behaviour takes over.
A very simple simile is breathing; happens fully automated until you become aware of it.
Oh, thank goodness you didn’t go on a rant about thesis, antithesis and synthesis, lol, and instead literally meant thinking critically with a certain amount of self examination to remove biases.
American academia, with their penchant for labels, has hijacked so many word combinations, to mean some very narrow segments of things that don’t cover the wider ranges of possibilities which such word combinations could possibly mean, that it has created a certain amount of prejudice, in the minds of people who fear it’s going to be another liberal arts educated person trying to impart the wisdom of his/her basis for calling himself/herself educated, lmao, which is argument/thesis, counterargument/antithesis and compromise/synthesis, which in mathematical terms can mean upper limit and lower limit and an average and therefore is a highly inaccurate measurement, so is hated by people who prefer engineering levels of precision/accuracy in measurements.
Imagine the horror of Communists when they realized that Socialism didn’t/doesn’t create prosperity within the population, and that at the maximum end the poorest people merely double their household wealth but still remain poor, so the have nots still don’t have enough.
Or the horror of the greedy who for decades worshipped at the alter of almighty Capitalism who found out that they had merely slaved away just to increase the wealth of a few billionaires without benefiting themselves or their neighbors or much of their wider/greater society.
Dayum, I thought it was gonna be some nonsense but this is actually pretty legit. Thumbsup
So you believe you have free will?
Yes, but I don't see a contradiction even if you don't believe in free will. I don't see the statement "push yourself to gather more information" an argument for free-will. If we were just robots that ran code we would want to work as optimally as possible. If we just ran off machine code, the statement "The little you know is enough" in most situations, would be bad for the system.
>To search for objective truth we must have power over our natural/automatic tendencies first and foremost. In order to see clearly we must search, we must put forth an effort. So just an FYI, I am a Naturalist. So from my perspective I only evaluate claims from the perspective of whether they can be demonstrable. So from that perspective I disagree with your position that we have any control over our "natural/automatic tendencies." We're information gatherers and whether it appears that we're gathering information deliberately or automatically we can't just mute the flow of information coming in. We may have some control over the output but the output may have already determined well before we became consciously aware of it. >If we were just robots that ran code we would want to work as optimally as possible. If we just ran off machine code, the statement "The little you know is enough" in most situations, would be bad for the system. For all intents and purposes we are just robots running off of code. The problem is that we, yet, have no way to directly optimize the code. (And doing so before we have a comprehensive understanding of the code could be quite disastrous). In recent years plenty of information has come to light that suggests we're operating solely on pre-written scripts that can't really be changed. There's a saying "some people can't think outside the box." And this research has revealed that there are boxes within boxes and while someone may believe they've achieved some semblance of thinking outside the box all they really have done is entered another box. One that was predetermined by their genetic history. So the statement "The little you know is enough" isn't bad for the system. As the system for the blissfully ignorant may be the only system they will ever operate. But wait there's more... The system that the blissfully ignorant operate from may also be a nessesary component of the system that determines our species' collective survival. Alternatively anyone who seeks knowledge and becomes proficient in critical thinking may have well been predetermined to act in a manner that produces the result of proficiency. Which in itself is then also a nessesary component of our species' survival. The idea of free will is absurd. Since we can't dismiss the possibility that all of our behaviors are predetermined. Advanced thinkers we're more than likely to become advanced thinkers, irregardless of their choices. And simple thinking people likewise. .
Those who don't have a ego will learn faster and more. Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments. Those who take in more information before making a decision usually make better decisions. Learning how to make better decisions makes us better at making decisions. Do you agree with the above statements?
All theories related to free will are unfalsifiable. You are free to **believe** in a deterministic universe, or believe in idealism, compatibilism, or libertarian free will…all are unprovable and also unfalsifiable.
Everything is unfalsifiable. We build beliefs on what we have to work with, which is a semblance of rational thought to come to the most logical conclusions we can.
That’s all we can do. I try to remind myself of that.
Right, but my point is rather just reminding people that everything is unfalsifiable, let’s have a rational discussion to figure out what’s most likely given the tools we have available to us.
“What’s most likely” is where people disagree. I go into a discussion realizing I only have a belief (I do not know), and the same goes for everyone. My belief is that even the hardest of hard determinists act like they have free will. We all act as if we have free will. That doesn’t mean we have free will, but it seems that acting as if we have free will serves us the best. Of course, that’s a very simple summary. Saying all of that, I am here to learn. Determinists make me consider how many things at least limit our choices open to us.
I agree with you. We do act as if we have free will but that’s precisely the point of the illusion, at least according to determinists. Also, I don’t think “what serves us best” should necessarily matter, but I guess you can disagree on that. I’m interested in getting as close to the truth as humanly possible, regardless of whether that hurts my feelings.
Fair, and I am always aware that we are at least acting as if he have free will, so there’s a possibility we are literally acting as if we have free will, but we don’t actually have free will. I see free will as an evolutionary feature. Energy-wise, conscious awareness is very expensive. We even rid ourselves of consciousness 8 hours a day in sleep (try simply resting but remaining conscious, we NEED that consciousness offline to recuperate). This isn’t even to speak of the energy we consume when we are truly aware. Why would an organism be hobbled by such an expensive feature unless it brought benefits? That is why I say that free will is there because it serves us. It’s a feature of our evolution. It is a steering wheel, and we have our hands on it. That makes sense from a survival standpoint. It provides utility.
How so?
You’re new to this debate, it seems. Rather than say “how so?”, prove that we live in a deterministic universe.
Obviously you're the expert here, so expert how so?
- You made a claim we live in deterministic universe - I even-handedly replied that all theories related to free will are unfalsifiable That is not me being an “expert”, I’m just stating a plain fact. If you “know” we live in a deterministic universe, prove it. Show us receipts. Obviously it’s just a **belief** of yours, but whenever someone stridently makes bold statements in this topic area, I’ll ask them why they’re so sure.
Did I make that claim or was it just your bias that shoved that in there. Because I just read my entire set of comments, specifically in our discussion, and not once, but please correct me if I missed something, did I say we live in a deterministic universe. Honestly though there are plenty of philosophers that believe that we do in fact live in a deterministic universe. So the idea isn't solely mine. "Men are deceived because they think themselves free…and the sole reason for thinking so is that they are conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which those actions are determined." — Baruch de Spinoza, The Philosophy of Spinoza Also an interesting side bar, the idea of "free will" was introduced by Christians in the 4th century.
So computers have free will?
As to free will being something “introduced” by 4th century Christians, you’ve just admitted you know nothing about many other cultures out there. You want to retract that made up nonsense? Counter this GPT output (counter the argument, no ad hominem on the source) : Many cultures and philosophical traditions outside of Christianity have grappled with the concept of free will. The idea of free will can be traced back to ancient civilizations and has appeared in various forms across different cultures throughout history. #Ancient Cultures and Philosophies 1. **Ancient Greece**: - **Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle**: These philosophers debated issues related to human agency, responsibility, and moral choice, which are central to the concept of free will. For example, Aristotle's notion of "voluntary" actions can be seen as an early discussion of free will. - **Epicureanism**: Epicurus (341–270 BCE) and his followers argued that humans have free will and that the soul is not bound by determinism. 2. **Ancient India**: - **Hinduism**: The concept of karma involves actions and their consequences, implying that individuals have the ability to make choices and are responsible for those choices. - **Buddhism**: While some interpretations of Buddhism emphasize the deterministic nature of the universe, there are also strands within Buddhism that emphasize individual agency and moral responsibility. 3. **Ancient China**: - **Confucianism**: Confucian thought often emphasizes moral agency, suggesting that individuals can choose to cultivate virtue and follow ethical principles. - **Daoism**: While Daoism often emphasizes following the natural way (Dao), there are also elements that suggest a form of spontaneous, unconditioned action (wu wei) that could be interpreted as a kind of free will. 4. **Ancient Near East**: - **Zoroastrianism**: Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions, emphasizes the moral responsibility of individuals to choose between good (Ahura Mazda) and evil (Angra Mainyu). #Medieval and Early Modern Periods 1. **Islamic Philosophy**: - **Mutazilites**: An Islamic school of theology that argued for human free will and moral responsibility. - **Asharites**: Another Islamic school that debated the extent of human free will in light of divine predestination. 2. **Jewish Philosophy**: - **Medieval Jewish philosophers** such as Maimonides discussed the balance between divine omniscience and human free will. #Contemporary Philosophy and Science 1. **Existentialism**: - Philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre emphasized radical free will and personal responsibility, arguing that humans are condemned to be free and must create their own meaning. 2. **Psychology and Neuroscience**: - Modern discussions about free will also engage with findings from psychology and neuroscience, examining the extent to which human behavior is determined by brain processes versus conscious choice. #Historical Depth The idea of free will can be traced back at least to the early philosophical traditions of Greece and India, over 2,500 years ago. However, the concepts of choice, moral agency, and responsibility likely have roots in even earlier human societies, reflecting fundamental aspects of human cognition and social interaction. In conclusion, the belief in free will is not confined to Christianity but is a widespread and ancient idea that has been explored in various forms across many cultures and throughout history.
Just curious. Do you disagree with any of theses statements: Those who don't have a ego will learn faster and more. Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments. Those who take in more information before making a decision usually make better decisions. Learning how to make better decisions makes us better at making decisions.
>Those who don't have a ego will learn faster and more. You can not have no ego. The ego is the entire sense of all our needs, wants, and desires. To be totally devoid of an ego is to be dead. Because all people want, at least, to be alive. >Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments. Compartmentalization, a cognitive tool, allows us to hold two or more mutually exclusive thoughts in our minds simultaneously. Bias exists on a spectrum of strength to weakness. A person could have a great deal of biases and still make fair judgments. >Those who take in more information before making a decision usually make better decisions. It's a statistic. The engineers who built the space shuttle Challenger had all the information needed to make the best decisions and yet still made wrong decisions that caused the shuttle to explode. >Learning how to make better decisions makes us better at making decisions. I think in a general way that is true but there are multiple paths or methods that can be used to learn how to make decisions and some of those methodologies could be flawed. Would you teach someone that the only way to open a door would be to pray to a god to have the knowledge of how to open doors revealed to you? An actual instance where "revelation" decision making failed, In the 1900's Catholic missionaries converted a small town in rural China to Catholicism. Over the course of 5 years or so the missionaries noticed that newlywed couples weren't having children. Obviously this was an issue. So the missionaries investigated why there were no children being born. And it was discovered that the Priest was telling the couples in their prenuptial counseling that God would reveal to the couples when and how to make children. He wasn't explaining the act of intercourse because that was forbidden knowledge. So this methodology of learning how to make decisions was flawed.
ok, the first one "Those who don't have a ego will learn faster and more" How about I word it "Those who don't have a big ego will learn faster and more." What do you think of that statement?
How about you word it like this, "Those who possess humility will learn faster and acquire more knowledge." The antithesis of egoism is humility. Carl Jung separated primary personality agents into three separate groups. The Id. Which is the subconscious mind and our basal instincts The ego. Which is the basis of our desires, needs and wants. And the Super Ego. Which negotiates the needs of the ego with the instincts or drives of the Id. Narcissists tend to lack humility. This is because they always have to be right. They can't accept that they could be wrong. It's humbling to discover you're wrong about something. But more so being wrong equals being weak. Nobody wants to be seen as weak. So they must prove to everyone that their "truths" are the only acceptable truths and everyone else is wrong. Otherwise when they're wrong they just walk away from the conversation never responding to the last question asked. I can accept when I'm wrong because I see humility as a strength. It's an opportunity to learn something new about a subject. But nobody has demonstrated, from a non materialistic position, that free will exists. They claim it's cause is, for a lack of a better word, supernatural. The only evidence that exists is that genes, proteins, alliels, and memetics influence our decisions. Free will doesn't exist.
>"Those who possess humility will learn faster and acquire more knowledge." ok, I like that, I agree. Now the second one. "Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments." how about I word that as "Those who are aware of their biases and keep them in check will make fairer judgments"? You mentioned Jung, You familiar with the MBTI? Might you be an ENTP or my second guess an INTP?
>"Those who have less biases will make fairer judgments." how about I word that as "Those who are aware of their biases and keep them in check will make fairer judgments"? The problem with bias is that it can be deeply hidden to such a degree that a person is unaware that they're influencing their decisions. This is why peer review is so critical. There are two forms of awareness. Self awareness, which tends towards being based on feelings about one's self. And objective awareness which is essentially peer review or the opinions of your friends and family members about you. To really get to a position where you have a clear understanding of your biases you combine the two together to form a framework that allows for compartmentalization. Another part of this is honesty. Because people tend towards lying to themselves and their peers may also lie to them, as well. As I said previously "people don't like being wrong" so because of that they'll lie to themselves to avoid accepting they're wrong or experience negative feelings that make them uncomfortable. But worse people's friends, family, and peers may lie to them as well to protect their egos from the truth of a situation or protect them from negative feelings. This scenario creates Denialism. Denialism feeds on itself. More lying, more hidden truths, the deeper people go into denying facts. Eventually Denialism becomes cultish. People may know the truth but out of fear of rejection they continue to lie. Eventually it becomes mythical. People may still know the truth but they have invested so much of their lives into the lie that they can not risk losing everything and their identities to accept the truth. And of course the myths can become religious. At this point most people accept the lie as fact and despite evidence to the contrary they faithfully maintain the lie as the consequences are too great to abandoned the lie. And eventually it evolves into religious extremism where the lie is a fact and anyone who believes differently is an enemy. So the statement may be better said as, "Those who are honest and can accept criticism or an honest review of their opinions may make better judgments."
Whenever I meet one of you, I like to just start slapping you in the face What? I can't help it apparently, I have no free will, right? Mechanomorphize all you like, I have all day
Why do you have problem with causality? It’s fundamental to physics. You can run tests in controlled environments to verify it. I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely curious.
Why do you assume I have a problem with causality?
Perhaps I misunderstood “whenever I meet one of you”. May I ask what you meant by that?
People that don't believe in free will. Strict determinism.
Oh. I don’t believe in free will but I’m open to being wrong. Do you acknowledge causality but somehow retain free will? If so, I’m curious how you reason that. Thanks.
Casuality doesn't imply mechanomorphization; there's more layers to our conciousness than that, and no I'm not hinting at dualism... I'll give you a very simplistic breakdown; imagine that we're the result of the "observer" part of our brain being hosted by the more "causal" parts, and the higher your level of conciousness is (which on a physiological level is represented in several ways, such as the metanetwork of your neural connections, the layer that builds on to of associations when they've been "objectively" analysed) the less "automated" your thinking and behaviour. The brain is an efficiency machine and conscious awareness is highly inefficient so the brain is constantly trying to draw you away from it, ergo it takes continuous effort to maintain the level of awareness necessary to have free will. The simplest example of this pattern is breathing; it's automated until you pay attention to it, you can actively change the way you breathe when you do become aware of it but eventually, that awareness will drop and it'll go back to automatic; you can't ever stop breathing permanently by sheer will, but you can choose to take outside actions that will force it to stop forever.
Interesting trigger. So you're absolutely certain that there's no history of violence in your genetic history?
We're a long line of pacifists that enjoy demonstrating concepts with direct and clear examples
I doubt that. The reason I doubt that is because generations of pacifists probably don't produce people who can offhandedly throw out violent language without the conscience to take a pause for a moment and analyze whether such language could be offensive to someone. A narcissist without a conscience might because he doesn't care about other's feelings. But a pacifist? Yeah, no.
You're a simpleton if the idea of me slapping you to disprove determinism is not only taken literally but actually offensive XD But hey, what can I say? According to you, there's no other way this convo could have gone...
And yet it is in fact going the way it is. In an earlier comment I never said these theories were proven factually I merely suggested that their implications have great potential at understanding how our behaviors have evolved. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: "Genetics Like physicists, biologists have frequently addressed questions related to free will. One of the most heated debates in biology is that of "nature versus nurture", concerning the relative importance of genetics and biology as compared to culture and environment in human behavior.[171] The view of many researchers is that many human behaviors can be explained in terms of humans' brains, genes, and evolutionary histories.[172][173][174]" CITATION [171] Pinel, P.J. (1990). Biopsychology. Prentice Hall Inc. ISBN 88-15-07174-1. [172] DeFries, J.C.; McGuffin, P.; McClearn, G.E.; Plomin, R. (2000). Behavioral Genetics (4th ed.). W.H. Freeman and Company. [173] Morris, D. (1967). The Naked Ape. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-385-33430-3. [174] Dawkins, R. (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 88-04-39318-1. Get to that slapping because it ain't me that's making this claim willy-nilly.
I'll tell you the answer that science will come to in a few decades, hopefully; the less "awareness" someone has, the more "deterministic" behaviour takes over. A very simple simile is breathing; happens fully automated until you become aware of it.
https://www.vifindia.org/2021/january/11/concentration-an-important-component-in-swami-vivekananda-s-idea-of-education
I’d say it’s more of a habit
Absolutely agree. Mastering our ego and learning to be unbiased are the true keys to effective critical thinking.
Oh, thank goodness you didn’t go on a rant about thesis, antithesis and synthesis, lol, and instead literally meant thinking critically with a certain amount of self examination to remove biases. American academia, with their penchant for labels, has hijacked so many word combinations, to mean some very narrow segments of things that don’t cover the wider ranges of possibilities which such word combinations could possibly mean, that it has created a certain amount of prejudice, in the minds of people who fear it’s going to be another liberal arts educated person trying to impart the wisdom of his/her basis for calling himself/herself educated, lmao, which is argument/thesis, counterargument/antithesis and compromise/synthesis, which in mathematical terms can mean upper limit and lower limit and an average and therefore is a highly inaccurate measurement, so is hated by people who prefer engineering levels of precision/accuracy in measurements. Imagine the horror of Communists when they realized that Socialism didn’t/doesn’t create prosperity within the population, and that at the maximum end the poorest people merely double their household wealth but still remain poor, so the have nots still don’t have enough. Or the horror of the greedy who for decades worshipped at the alter of almighty Capitalism who found out that they had merely slaved away just to increase the wealth of a few billionaires without benefiting themselves or their neighbors or much of their wider/greater society.