“But often, if not always, each decision is between a group of pros and cons on either side. Whatever we choose and whatever we do there is both pro and con associated with it.”
Exactly. Pro = reward.
Con = no reward.
William, I really appreciate and respect your openness on such personal matters. I made similar decisions myself after my partner died. I was a believer, but chose not to sleep with men. It’s not that I had the urge to go out and “cat around”. I didn’t — but I was lonely and wanted to feel that intimate connection with another human. I struggled with the urge to masturbate, but I was taught that it was sinful, and I didn’t want to disappoint god. So my decisions were reward based for a number of reasons. One, I didn’t want to use men for their bodies (though they would have liked me too, 😉 ) and two, I didn’t want to displease god and come out from “his” covering, protection.
i think we still have choice, although it is influenced by many external things or things beyond our control.
I may can sympathize with a decision someone has made, even if i think it’s the wrong one, because i can see where they’re coming from, but i do not believe they were helpless and HAD to act that way.
we each choose to participate here – we could choose not to.
this is a discussion that i think has little point.
if we put this in a religious context, we could talk about freewill in heaven like,
1) is there any?
2) if so, and if freewill means you’ll eventually sin, then will you eventually sin in heaven?
3) if people could sin in heaven and if god cant be around sin, then would all the saved end up condemned – just like the devil and his angels were cast out?
4) if you can have freewill without sin, then why didnt god make it that way on earth and how did the angels sin in heaven in they cant or lack nothing up there?
William, there may be little “point” to the discussion of free will, as you say. Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating topic. And personally, I appreciate the feedback that’s been offered. It’s given me something different (and more intellectual) to mull around in my head instead of the crud we’ve previously been discussing with you-know-who.
neuro have you never made a decision where you thought that the potential rewards were virtually equal?
I can say that I think i’ve made decisions that i really think offered me the least reward. I get that we can just say, “but if you chose it, then what little reward there was, meant that little reward meant more to you at the time.”
we could say that about anything, and i could just be saying the above, so it’s not a proof I’m trying to make – just asking a question.
Every decision is based on a number of different factors. The other day, I really wanted some Doritos, but I knew that I didn’t need them, and I managed to withstand the temptation all day. The Doritos would have “rewarded” me with awesome flavor, but the idea of being healthier won out. From a strict “reward” basis, I would have been more rewarded by the Doritos than by abstaining, but only in that moment. A longer-term reward was to abstain.
There were moments where I almost gave in yesterday (there’s a bag in the pantry), but I really pushed myself in those moments to be distracted by something else. If yesterday could be replayed, I imagine my choices would still be the same. Even though I felt that I could go either way in the moment, something swayed me to skip the Doritos. I see no reason to think it wouldn’t do the same thing were I to replay everything exactly.
We’re still making choices. And if I had eaten the Doritos, that might have made me feel guilty enough to do something much healthier later. So we can definitely change behavior too. But I think if you could “replay” your life without any additional knowledge, the choices would end up the same.
I agree with Nan… it’s an interesting conversation. And if we could replay this day, I’m sure I’d still agree with Nan 🙂
Okay, I agree with everything you just said, Nate. But even though, if we went back, we wouldn’t> make a different choice does that mean we couldn’t make a different choice?
Keep your Doritos. Ice cream doesn’t stand a chance!
neuro have you never made a decision where you thought that the potential rewards were virtually equal?
I can say that I think i’ve made decisions that i really think offered me the least reward.
Well, perhaps they appeared to be equal, meaning I could get immediate reward, but down the road there could be consequences. I was looking at long term when I made those choices. The decision to not sleep with men had to do with my feeling of not wanting to be used by men — kinda the Golden Rule. So empathy was involved in that decision.
But all those decisions were based on my perception of morality at the time and my belief in god. Now, I know that masturbation can be quite healthy and is perfectly natural. I didn’t at the time. Even if I had been presented the research, I still would have chosen to abstain because I would have likely believed that I was being deceived.
These were conscious decisions based on conscience, which ultimately was based on the perception that reward was involved even if I wasn’t consciously aware of it at the time.
But even though, if we went back, we wouldn’t make a different choice does that mean we couldn’t make a different choice?
This is the key right here! Great question/point! Yes, I think we could have made a different choice. So in that way, we have free will. However, there was some decision, some emotion, some catalyst that pushed us in one direction over another. And since that would still be the same, I think we’d still make the same decision.
We’re responsible for our decisions… but the events that lead up to them (including our own thoughts/feelings) all inform our decision.
Okay, because in my muddled mind I thought we were saying that we held people responsible for choices they didn’t actually make. If we have no freewill then our ability to choose seems like merely an illusion.
Where I was going with this:
In my mind holding people responsible for choices they had no control over seemed eerily similar to God sending people to hell/punishing them/holding them accountable for sin when they don’t have a choice about whether to sin or not.
“In my mind holding people responsible for choices they had no control over seemed eerily similar to God sending people to hell/punishing them/holding them accountable for sin when they don’t have a choice about whether to sin or not. “
Ruth, your last paragraph is representative of a light bulb moment for me when I started researching the causes of antisocial behavior. It started out as a way of trying to understand why some serious crap had happen to me by others. It started out as a venture — to find forgiveness — authentic forgiveness. But that forgiveness, in my mind, had to come with understanding. Not just forgive by “faith” or was commanded that I had to forgive. What became apparent to me during this research was just how very human and illiterate Yahweh and Son were. This revelation was the beginning of my deconversion.
It started out as a venture — to find forgiveness — authentic forgiveness. But that forgiveness, in my mind, had to come with understanding. Not just forgive by “faith” or was commanded that I had to forgive. What became apparent to me during this research was just how very human and illiterate Yahweh and Son were. This revelation was the beginning of my deconversion.
Right, but what about action? See, I think the thing that is a question in my mind is this: if the person doesn’t have a choice how am I to react to that? I’m not talking about forgiveness. I’ve long since forgiven. My question is, then, how are we to respond to that individual? Or do we even have a choice in whether to respond or even extend forgiveness?
It’s raining (and hailing) this afternoon Neuro, so I finally had time to watch the video you offered me, How the Brain Works, with Neil Tyson, and I’m at the part about how some people see different letters in different colors. I have a friend, who calls herself “Strega” on blogsites, who is that way, and I would love to get her to discuss that with you. Unfortunately, she is English, living in the US on a green card, and her mother was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, so she has flown home to be with her. It is my feeling that it would be inappropriate to disturb her at this time, but maybe someday —
Nate (& others), your comments about the Doritos situation got me to thinking. What about people who can’t “control” their urges? Like alcoholics or people who suffer from anorexia or workaholics or the overly obese? What comes into play? These individuals may know they’re damaging their body, yet they continue. Is this also about rewards?
Right, but what about action? See, I think the thing that is a question in my mind is this: if the person doesn’t have a choice how am I to react to that? I’m not talking about forgiveness. I’ve long since forgiven. My question is, then, how are we to respond to that individual? Or do we even have a choice in whether to respond or even extend forgiveness?
Basically, what would that forgiveness look like?
I can only speak for my own experiences, but I’ll share one example with regard to action, if I understand you correctly, I set boundaries and sought to understand. When I experienced cyber fraud/identity theft, the guy got 12 years in the pen. I had met him online and over the course of several months he wooed me. This was back when the Internet was just getting started with message boards. I was too trusting and not aware that this activity was possible. His actions devastated my life. It was a huge sum of money — over 6 figures. He was a 1st Gulf War veteran who had sustained PTSD and blast-related TBI, an effect of over-pressurized shock waves that ripple out from explosions.
This can affect regions of the brain associated with impulse and empathy. He was exposed to depleted uranium as well which can also cause brain damage. But the courts never took any of that into account even though he was on disability, honorably discharged. At the time, i was not aware of how exposure like this could cause antisocial behavior. That was over a decade ago. He’s out of prison and has not been rehabilitated. He’s active online seeking out another victim. I know this because he has the same moniker and a blog. I had a chance to talk with his parents at the time of his arrest and they told me that he had never behaved like this before the war.
So action for me, is not only setting boundaries but seeing to understand (educate myself) why things like this occur. Our “justice system” is as archaic and barbaric as our belief systems.
Arch, I’ll be back in a bit to address your comment.
“I have a friend, who calls herself “Strega” on blogsites, who is that way, and I would love to get her to discuss that with you.”
Arch, my guess is that she probably knows more about synesthesia than I do since she lives with it. Has she been diagnosed with synesthesia? I think it would be totally cool to have that “disorder”. 😀
Lucky you that it’s been raining. It’s been very warm and muggy here. July weather in October. Go figure.
It would seem, Neuro – and I’m not agreeing nor disagreeing, merely asking – that you’re implying that absent a massive rewiring job, criminal rehabilitation is impossible? Which would further imply that prisons should operate as rewiring labs, or failing that, serve merely to keep the perpetrator out of society and away from potential victims.
Also, on the subject of AI – the female Human pelvis has reached its limit of expansion. Babies with much larger brains than those with which we’re contemporary, simply couldn’t pass through the average woman’s birth canal. So computers, and by extension, AI, has come (seemingly) fortuitously, just in time to enhance our intelligence without further physical evolution.
Finding Truth 
When you come right down to it, Ruth, isn’t life itself a delusion?
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When you come right down to it, Ruth, isn’t life itself a delusion?
We are in the matrix…
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Ruth, LOL @ the video. 😀
“But often, if not always, each decision is between a group of pros and cons on either side. Whatever we choose and whatever we do there is both pro and con associated with it.”
Exactly. Pro = reward.
Con = no reward.
William, I really appreciate and respect your openness on such personal matters. I made similar decisions myself after my partner died. I was a believer, but chose not to sleep with men. It’s not that I had the urge to go out and “cat around”. I didn’t — but I was lonely and wanted to feel that intimate connection with another human. I struggled with the urge to masturbate, but I was taught that it was sinful, and I didn’t want to disappoint god. So my decisions were reward based for a number of reasons. One, I didn’t want to use men for their bodies (though they would have liked me too, 😉 ) and two, I didn’t want to displease god and come out from “his” covering, protection.
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i think we still have choice, although it is influenced by many external things or things beyond our control.
I may can sympathize with a decision someone has made, even if i think it’s the wrong one, because i can see where they’re coming from, but i do not believe they were helpless and HAD to act that way.
we each choose to participate here – we could choose not to.
LikeLike
this is a discussion that i think has little point.
if we put this in a religious context, we could talk about freewill in heaven like,
1) is there any?
2) if so, and if freewill means you’ll eventually sin, then will you eventually sin in heaven?
3) if people could sin in heaven and if god cant be around sin, then would all the saved end up condemned – just like the devil and his angels were cast out?
4) if you can have freewill without sin, then why didnt god make it that way on earth and how did the angels sin in heaven in they cant or lack nothing up there?
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Neuro, yes I understand. But you still chose one set of pros over another, and still chose to accept one set of cons over another.
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William, there may be little “point” to the discussion of free will, as you say. Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating topic. And personally, I appreciate the feedback that’s been offered. It’s given me something different (and more intellectual) to mull around in my head instead of the crud we’ve previously been discussing with you-know-who.
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“Neuro, yes I understand. But you still chose one set of pros over another, and still chose to accept one set of cons over another.”
Indeed, William. Ultimately one set of choices offered more reward than the other.
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neuro have you never made a decision where you thought that the potential rewards were virtually equal?
I can say that I think i’ve made decisions that i really think offered me the least reward. I get that we can just say, “but if you chose it, then what little reward there was, meant that little reward meant more to you at the time.”
we could say that about anything, and i could just be saying the above, so it’s not a proof I’m trying to make – just asking a question.
LikeLike
Every decision is based on a number of different factors. The other day, I really wanted some Doritos, but I knew that I didn’t need them, and I managed to withstand the temptation all day. The Doritos would have “rewarded” me with awesome flavor, but the idea of being healthier won out. From a strict “reward” basis, I would have been more rewarded by the Doritos than by abstaining, but only in that moment. A longer-term reward was to abstain.
There were moments where I almost gave in yesterday (there’s a bag in the pantry), but I really pushed myself in those moments to be distracted by something else. If yesterday could be replayed, I imagine my choices would still be the same. Even though I felt that I could go either way in the moment, something swayed me to skip the Doritos. I see no reason to think it wouldn’t do the same thing were I to replay everything exactly.
We’re still making choices. And if I had eaten the Doritos, that might have made me feel guilty enough to do something much healthier later. So we can definitely change behavior too. But I think if you could “replay” your life without any additional knowledge, the choices would end up the same.
I agree with Nan… it’s an interesting conversation. And if we could replay this day, I’m sure I’d still agree with Nan 🙂
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Okay, I agree with everything you just said, Nate. But even though, if we went back, we wouldn’t> make a different choice does that mean we couldn’t make a different choice?
Keep your Doritos. Ice cream doesn’t stand a chance!
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Trust me Ruth, the sauce wasn’t the only thing I ever hit.
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Hahaha! I assumed since you’ve discussed the fact that you have children.
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Well, perhaps they appeared to be equal, meaning I could get immediate reward, but down the road there could be consequences. I was looking at long term when I made those choices. The decision to not sleep with men had to do with my feeling of not wanting to be used by men — kinda the Golden Rule. So empathy was involved in that decision.
But all those decisions were based on my perception of morality at the time and my belief in god. Now, I know that masturbation can be quite healthy and is perfectly natural. I didn’t at the time. Even if I had been presented the research, I still would have chosen to abstain because I would have likely believed that I was being deceived.
These were conscious decisions based on conscience, which ultimately was based on the perception that reward was involved even if I wasn’t consciously aware of it at the time.
Did that answer your question?
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This is the key right here! Great question/point! Yes, I think we could have made a different choice. So in that way, we have free will. However, there was some decision, some emotion, some catalyst that pushed us in one direction over another. And since that would still be the same, I think we’d still make the same decision.
We’re responsible for our decisions… but the events that lead up to them (including our own thoughts/feelings) all inform our decision.
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“If yesterday could be replayed, I imagine my choices would still be the same.” – so no Bill Murray, Groundhog Day for you, Nate?
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Okay, because in my muddled mind I thought we were saying that we held people responsible for choices they didn’t actually make. If we have no freewill then our ability to choose seems like merely an illusion.
Where I was going with this:
In my mind holding people responsible for choices they had no control over seemed eerily similar to God sending people to hell/punishing them/holding them accountable for sin when they don’t have a choice about whether to sin or not.
LikeLike
“In my mind holding people responsible for choices they had no control over seemed eerily similar to God sending people to hell/punishing them/holding them accountable for sin when they don’t have a choice about whether to sin or not. “
Ruth, your last paragraph is representative of a light bulb moment for me when I started researching the causes of antisocial behavior. It started out as a way of trying to understand why some serious crap had happen to me by others. It started out as a venture — to find forgiveness — authentic forgiveness. But that forgiveness, in my mind, had to come with understanding. Not just forgive by “faith” or was commanded that I had to forgive. What became apparent to me during this research was just how very human and illiterate Yahweh and Son were. This revelation was the beginning of my deconversion.
LikeLike
It started out as a venture — to find forgiveness — authentic forgiveness. But that forgiveness, in my mind, had to come with understanding. Not just forgive by “faith” or was commanded that I had to forgive. What became apparent to me during this research was just how very human and illiterate Yahweh and Son were. This revelation was the beginning of my deconversion.
Right, but what about action? See, I think the thing that is a question in my mind is this: if the person doesn’t have a choice how am I to react to that? I’m not talking about forgiveness. I’ve long since forgiven. My question is, then, how are we to respond to that individual? Or do we even have a choice in whether to respond or even extend forgiveness?
Basically, what would that forgiveness look like?
LikeLike
It’s raining (and hailing) this afternoon Neuro, so I finally had time to watch the video you offered me, How the Brain Works, with Neil Tyson, and I’m at the part about how some people see different letters in different colors. I have a friend, who calls herself “Strega” on blogsites, who is that way, and I would love to get her to discuss that with you. Unfortunately, she is English, living in the US on a green card, and her mother was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, so she has flown home to be with her. It is my feeling that it would be inappropriate to disturb her at this time, but maybe someday —
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Nate (& others), your comments about the Doritos situation got me to thinking. What about people who can’t “control” their urges? Like alcoholics or people who suffer from anorexia or workaholics or the overly obese? What comes into play? These individuals may know they’re damaging their body, yet they continue. Is this also about rewards?
LikeLike
I can only speak for my own experiences, but I’ll share one example with regard to action, if I understand you correctly, I set boundaries and sought to understand. When I experienced cyber fraud/identity theft, the guy got 12 years in the pen. I had met him online and over the course of several months he wooed me. This was back when the Internet was just getting started with message boards. I was too trusting and not aware that this activity was possible. His actions devastated my life. It was a huge sum of money — over 6 figures. He was a 1st Gulf War veteran who had sustained PTSD and blast-related TBI, an effect of over-pressurized shock waves that ripple out from explosions.
This can affect regions of the brain associated with impulse and empathy. He was exposed to depleted uranium as well which can also cause brain damage. But the courts never took any of that into account even though he was on disability, honorably discharged. At the time, i was not aware of how exposure like this could cause antisocial behavior. That was over a decade ago. He’s out of prison and has not been rehabilitated. He’s active online seeking out another victim. I know this because he has the same moniker and a blog. I had a chance to talk with his parents at the time of his arrest and they told me that he had never behaved like this before the war.
So action for me, is not only setting boundaries but seeing to understand (educate myself) why things like this occur. Our “justice system” is as archaic and barbaric as our belief systems.
Arch, I’ll be back in a bit to address your comment.
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“I have a friend, who calls herself “Strega” on blogsites, who is that way, and I would love to get her to discuss that with you.”
Arch, my guess is that she probably knows more about synesthesia than I do since she lives with it. Has she been diagnosed with synesthesia? I think it would be totally cool to have that “disorder”. 😀
Lucky you that it’s been raining. It’s been very warm and muggy here. July weather in October. Go figure.
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It would seem, Neuro – and I’m not agreeing nor disagreeing, merely asking – that you’re implying that absent a massive rewiring job, criminal rehabilitation is impossible? Which would further imply that prisons should operate as rewiring labs, or failing that, serve merely to keep the perpetrator out of society and away from potential victims.
Also, on the subject of AI – the female Human pelvis has reached its limit of expansion. Babies with much larger brains than those with which we’re contemporary, simply couldn’t pass through the average woman’s birth canal. So computers, and by extension, AI, has come (seemingly) fortuitously, just in time to enhance our intelligence without further physical evolution.
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“Lucky you that it’s been raining.” – too little, too late, last month went down as the driest September in the history of record-keeping.
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