Seeing Things Differently -DanP the apologist excuse.

[Rivendale]

What is doing the "willing" ?

I suppose you would have to answer that question for yourself.

Regards,
MG

I don't know. As of now I am not aware of anyone knowing. Believing that they know is quite widespread in today's world and it hasn't lossed its ability to infect politics, medical care and almost all religions. I think Carl Sagan captured it perfectly.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

[MG 2.0]

In fact I do. Just as you had the free will to respond to my post.



No it didn’t. As I’ve recently said, however, that does seem to happen. You’re taking an all or nothing approach it seems to me. I could be mistaken though because I can’t know for a fact what is going on inside your head.



I wrote this an hour or two ago in linear time. I could have written it differently then and I could go back and edit it now. Within the closed system of my mind and self awareness I can choose my actions and express them in the world that is external to me.

I am sitting here right now on a swing on our patio finishing a Nature’s Bakery Fig Bar and a container of yogurt after having gone out for an hour run. I did both of these things because I chose to.

I just chose to write the previous paragraph of my own free will and choice.

Free will is the greatest gift we have. You should just accept it and roll with it, in my opinion. But your world is external to mine and it may well be that you have no free will and are not a free agent. Or at least believe that to be so. But that is something that I have no control over.



I don’t think so. Hey, thanks for chiming in drumdude. Hope all is well with you and yours.

Regards,
MG

MG, actually neither you nor anyone else has a factual basis to claim that you could have acted or not acted differently than you did at some time in the past. Once you've acted, there is no way for you to go back and not act. What we all have is some kind of sense that we are choosing. But that sense is just another signal from the brain, and there is no way to tell how closely that sense resembles objectively what really happened.

Or so you choose…chose(?)…to think.

Why does free will get a bad rap?

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Free will requires something outside of reality, by definition.

This doesn’t make sense to me. I know it probably does to you because you produced this thought in your mind and decided to express it.

But your thought/statement doesn’t do anything for me.

Maybe if you expanded it a bit so that I might recognize something that runs in tandem to my thought processes? Right now I’m not able to connect.

It’s the “outside of reality” and “by definition” I’m struggling with.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Free will requires something outside of reality, by definition.

If it’s just the sum total of the material universe, then it’s not free.

Next sentence, same thing. Makes no sense. To me. Can you explain why this sentence has meaning for you? Maybe some concrete examples?

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

The immaterial soul, in order to operate the way people think free will works, has to be completely outside of everything. As if a computer user was playing The Sims, and we are a Sim.

Not sure what you mean by “outside of everything”.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

I suppose you would have to answer that question for yourself.

Regards,
MG

I don't know. As of now I am not aware of anyone knowing. Believing that they know is quite widespread in today's world and it hasn't lossed its ability to infect politics, medical care and almost all religions. I think Carl Sagan captured it perfectly.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

It is possible to be bamboozled. The evidence demonstrates this. Minds can fall prey to being manipulated whereas they are as malleable. In the right hands the mind is like potter’s clay.

It takes strength, courage, and mental powers of independent thought to remain independent of the influences that steer our thoughts in directions that are unproductive and even harmful.

Regards,
MG

[drumdude]

Free will requires something outside of reality, by definition.

If it’s just the sum total of the material universe, then it’s not free.

Next sentence, same thing. Makes no sense. To me. Can you explain why this sentence has meaning for you? Maybe some concrete examples?

Regards,
MG

Free will means a will free of restrictions. For example, if my will was completely free, I could will myself to believe I was an elephant. I don't have that freedom right now. I could pretend, but I don't see any way where I can convince myself perfectly that I am actually an elephant. That is one of many limitations on my freedom of will. It helps illustrate that my will is restricted, and not perfectly free, in at least some sense.

We would have to agree on that before continuing my line of reasoning.

[Rivendale]

I don't know. As of now I am not aware of anyone knowing. Believing that they know is quite widespread in today's world and it hasn't lossed its ability to infect politics, medical care and almost all religions. I think Carl Sagan captured it perfectly.

It is possible to be bamboozled. The evidence demonstrates this. Minds can fall prey to being manipulated whereas they are as malleable. In the right hands the mind is like potter’s clay.

It takes strength, courage, and mental powers of independent thought to remain independent of the influences that steer our thoughts in directions that are unproductive and even harmful.

Regards,
MG

In other words. Mistakes were made (but not by me).

[Res Ipsa]

Not at all. The idea is that we each enter the room with our own biases that influence our perceptions, but that these biases and perceptions can change as we're willing to empathize and interact with each other. Sometimes something in the room will force them to change even when we don't empathize and interact with each other. Perception is an open system influenced by many things.

I agree. Nonetheless, we each are subject to the limitations of being “closed in” inasfar as we create and in a certain sense imagine our own reality. Whether or not we change our biases and perceptions are a product of multifaceted workings within the closed system of our own minds. To think that the ‘other’ is in some respects ‘malleable clay’ that can be influenced to fall in line with a certain set of beliefs, biases, prejudices, etc., is of course a ‘thing’. We have seen this to be the case throughout history and even in our own time.

Some people are more malleable than others because they seem to be predisposed to letting their minds travel the path of least resistance. We’re all prone to that. But after all is said and done we are responsible for our own decisions even as we receive constant input and influences from the outside world…which is anything outside our own head. So even though we might be highly malleable we are still subject to the fact that we create our own reality. Whatever objective reality is, it is outside this closed system. And it cannot be fully known.

That’s why I am prone to think that objective reality cannot be known to a finite and limited close system such as a human. And objective truth would need to be introduced from outside the system.

I’ve talked about that at length previously.

I’m very wary of taking at face value the perceived reality(beliefs, biases, prejudices, and what have you) of another person. I know for a fact and by definition that their reality and imagination is limited in the same way that mine is.

Although, I should've course have respect and even a certain degree of empathy for where they are coming from especially if I can see that they hurting for one reason or another.

I’ve talked at length recently about the fact that unless we accept the ‘other’ as who they are we are going to continue to travel the road of polarization and defeat. We all become losers if we are not able to ‘see’ the other with grace. That’s all we can do when it is a given fact we are limited by our very nature to readily grasp objective truth in all of its glory, so to speak.

I call that objective source of truth God.

Regards,
MG

I think maybe your use of "closed system" is more confusing than illuminating. If the system is the human brain, then all information comes from outside the system. My brain takes all kinds of information that it receives from you, Morely, Dan Peterson, Jordan Peterson, the American Academy of Science, youtube, Fox News, and on and on and on. From that information, it constructs a reality. But there is no good way for me to tell which of these sources most resembles objective reality. So, if I aspire to be "reality based," I try to construct my reality in a way that resembles objective reality. But there is reliable method of knowing how close I really am. And that recognition should, in theory, be depolarizing.

If you take that notion seriously, then the process ends there. Full stop. Even if one of the millions of sources of information that flow from outside our brains into our brains was 100% objectively true, there is no way that we could recognize it. We don't have access to objective truth, so we have no yardstick against which to measure different sources of information.

As soon you claim the existence of a source of objective truth or reality that you can recognize as such, you've just contradicted everything you've said before. You are attempting to avoid that contradiction through what's called special pleading. Something like, but information from God is different because 1) God is objective; and 2) we have reliable access to information from God. Why are these things true? Because you thought up an entity and defined it to be an exception. But why? When you think you are receiving information from God that you can recognize as objective truth, how do you know that? You don't have any objective reality yardstick to compare this information from God against. You just claim it as part of your own subjective reality. Which makes it no different at all qualitatively from my subjective reality.

As soon as you claim privileged access as a God believer to objective truth, you claim a superior status in terms of access to objective reality. That completely undercuts you're concept of "I'm okay, you're okay" and replaces it with "I'm okay, you're okay, but not really." And that comes through loud and clear when you qualify all of the relativistic stuff in your post with "I call that objective source of truth God."

[MG 2.0]

I agree. Nonetheless, we each are subject to the limitations of being “closed in” inasfar as we create and in a certain sense imagine our own reality. Whether or not we change our biases and perceptions are a product of multifaceted workings within the closed system of our own minds. To think that the ‘other’ is in some respects ‘malleable clay’ that can be influenced to fall in line with a certain set of beliefs, biases, prejudices, etc., is of course a ‘thing’. We have seen this to be the case throughout history and even in our own time.

Some people are more malleable than others because they seem to be predisposed to letting their minds travel the path of least resistance. We’re all prone to that. But after all is said and done we are responsible for our own decisions even as we receive constant input and influences from the outside world…which is anything outside our own head. So even though we might be highly malleable we are still subject to the fact that we create our own reality. Whatever objective reality is, it is outside this closed system. And it cannot be fully known.

That’s why I am prone to think that objective reality cannot be known to a finite and limited close system such as a human. And objective truth would need to be introduced from outside the system.

I’ve talked about that at length previously.

I’m very wary of taking at face value the perceived reality(beliefs, biases, prejudices, and what have you) of another person. I know for a fact and by definition that their reality and imagination is limited in the same way that mine is.

Although, I should've course have respect and even a certain degree of empathy for where they are coming from especially if I can see that they hurting for one reason or another.

I’ve talked at length recently about the fact that unless we accept the ‘other’ as who they are we are going to continue to travel the road of polarization and defeat. We all become losers if we are not able to ‘see’ the other with grace. That’s all we can do when it is a given fact we are limited by our very nature to readily grasp objective truth in all of its glory, so to speak.

I call that objective source of truth God.

Regards,
MG

I think maybe your use of "closed system" is more confusing than illuminating.

In my mind…pun intended…I can’t see that it can be any other way. If I didn’t exist objective reality would not cease to exist. There would be no explanation/meaning for it because there would be no observer (me) to question its meaning or ask “why?”. Only because I exist can I ask the question why, and look for answers. But to say all answers are subjective and not objective simply because I am in a closed biological system seems unreasonable knowing that if I cease to exist everything else goes on existing with absolutely no recognition of me as a person or my questions. Objective reality just is. And as an observer I can ask questions but I am incapable of knowing the answers except for what my brain interprets as being reality. Some…a lot… being subjective and MAYBE some objective thrown in.

My argument is that if there is objective truth it would have to be introduced into the system from the outside. It would be more or less a “special instance”.

If the system is the human brain, then all information comes from outside the system. My brain takes all kinds of information that it receives from you, Morely, Dan Peterson, Jordan Peterson, the American Academy of Science, youtube, Fox News, and on and on and on. From that information, it constructs a reality.

Yes. Your reality.

But there is no good way for me to tell which of these sources most resembles objective reality.

Exactly.

So, if I aspire to be "reality based," I try to construct my reality in a way that resembles objective reality.

We can give it our best shot.

But there is reliable method of knowing how close I really am.

That “reliable method”, however, is a construct.

Even if one of the millions of sources of information that flow from outside our brains into our brains was 100% objectively true, there is no way that we could recognize it.

I would agree that recognizing it would be something to be determined at an individual level. But to say that it is not something that be can be recognized as objective truth…either/or…is looking at it from a zero sum perspective. It is in the eye of the observer.

There are many truths that religionists consider to be objective albeit from a position of faith. The only way one would be able to discern ACTUAL objective truth would be from ACTUAL revealed truth from outside the system. That is problematic in the sense that humans are prone to ‘making stuff up’ because it subjectively ‘floats your boat’ as it fits with personal expectations and the needs for this or that.

So for the outside observer, which is all of us, it’s a Catch-22. We can only determine what the truth is for our own closed system of recognition and perception.

If I believe the CofJCofLDS to be the conduit of information from outside the closed system I can only determine that for myself knowing that others ‘in the room’ are going to have differing perceptions (for a whole host of reasons) and are not going to see things the same way I do. If we all give each other grace in these matters it really would alleviate most of the unhelpful and unhealthy confrontations. This knowledge (for me) has come through (for me) over a long period of time. It’s my truth but not necessarily someone else’s.

In our age of constant information and readily accessible anonymity the path of least resistance is to fall short and fail to realize that everyone in the room and ‘at the party’ is going to have differences of opinion in regards to objective and subjective truths.

We don't have access to objective truth, so we have no yardstick against which to measure different sources of information.

That’s true only when we believe there is no yardstick.

As soon you claim the existence of a source of objective truth or reality that you can recognize as such, you've just contradicted everything you've said before.

I don’t believe so.

You are attempting to avoid that contradiction through what's called special pleading. Something like, but information from God is different because 1) God is objective; and 2) we have reliable access to information from God.

Admittedly, yes.

Why are these things true? Because you thought up an entity and defined it to be an exception.

That becomes an “if” statement. Either/or. If there isn’t an entity outside of human consciousness then OF COURSE it’s a “thought up” entity. YOUR presupposition is that it is thought up. The thing is, if there is an objective truth/entity outside of our human view that entity is NOT thought up and actually exists and can give input into the closed system.

That’s where individual searching, reasoning, and efforts to reach out beyond the closed system come into play. The problem is, as we all know, is that subjectivity comes into play. We can only be responsive for our own ‘truth’.

When you think you are receiving information from God that you can recognize as objective truth, how do you know that?

The same way we learn many if not most things. Trial and error. But it’s an individual path for each person on the planet. I don’t think it can be directly implanted or shared with anyone else, again because of solipsistic factors that enter in.

As soon as you claim privileged access as a God believer to objective truth, you claim a superior status in terms of access to objective reality.

I suppose in a certain sense that is true. But it doesn’t need to get in the way of showing grace and understanding that we are all in the room and are perceiving things differently.

That completely undercuts you're concept of "I'm okay, you're okay" and replaces it with "I'm okay, you're okay, but not really."

I honestly don’t think it needs to. It’s in the eyes of the observer.

And that comes through loud and clear when you qualify all of the relativistic stuff in your post with "I call that objective source of truth God."

That’s my truth. Not yours. We ought to be free to express our truth without any kind of condemnation. I’m perfectly open to the qualifications/logical explanations…or testimony… of ‘your truth’ as I listen to you, knowing that it’s your truth.

There is no reason that I can see for all of the bickering that goes on her and in other places that can’t be solved by listening/understanding/acceptance.

As I said before, I think we are genetically/tribally predisposition towards fear and protection of our own turf even if it results in warfare and hurt.

I’ve fallen prey to that tendency.

Sorry. Long post. But I thought you brought up some good points that were relevant to the conversation and deserved response.

Regards,
MG