Seeing Things Differently -DanP the apologist excuse.

[MG 2.0]

My comments regarding a closed system refer to my references to solipsism.

I'm guessing that you really understand neither concept.

We’re both in the same room. But that seems to be about as far as it goes.

Have a nice day.

Regards,
MG

[Dr Exiled]

MG is here to preach the good word according to him. No one can understand him except he, himself, and Jesus, obviously. So, he is off-limits to criticism as no one can understand what goes on inside his head.

So, preach away good buddy. Don't know what success you'll have, but, Ammon and his brethren went among the Lamanites, supposedly, and confounded those less-thans. There is always hope and hope leads to a better world in the bosom of Christ.

[Morley]

I'm guessing that you really understand neither concept.

We’re both in the same room. But that seems to be about as far as it goes.

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.

[MG 2.0]

We’re both in the same room. But that seems to be about as far as it goes.

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

[drumdude]

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.

You don’t have the free will to have written this any other way. Your brain didn’t just travel the path of least resistance- it traveled the only path it could have. There was no point in time when you could have written this differently, because then you would have written it differently.

If you do enough introspection like this you’ll discover that free will is an illusion.

[Rivendale]

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.

You don’t have the free will to have written this any other way. Your brain didn’t just travel the path of least resistance- it traveled the only path it could have. There was no point in time when you could have written this differently, because then you would have written it differently.

If you do enough introspection like this you’ll discover that free will is an illusion.

What is doing the "willing" ? Believers like to say the soul. I have yet to see evidence of refined matter interacting with non-refined matter without leaving a single shred of evidence. I see believers all the time think preferences are the same thing as free will. This illusion seems to give comfort that there really is a litte man running the pg13 Cartesian theater.

[MG 2.0]

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.

You don’t have the free will to have written this any other way.

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

Your brain didn’t just travel the path of least resistance- it traveled the only path it could have.

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.

There was no point in time when you could have written this differently, because then you would have written it differently.

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.

If you do enough introspection like this you’ll discover that free will is an illusion.

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

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

You don’t have the free will to have written this any other way. Your brain didn’t just travel the path of least resistance- it traveled the only path it could have. There was no point in time when you could have written this differently, because then you would have written it differently.

If you do enough introspection like this you’ll discover that free will is an illusion.

What is doing the "willing"?

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

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

You don’t have the free will to have written this any other way.

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

Your brain didn’t just travel the path of least resistance- it traveled the only path it could have.

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.

There was no point in time when you could have written this differently, because then you would have written it differently.

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.

If you do enough introspection like this you’ll discover that free will is an illusion.

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.

[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. It’s bound by cause and effect and the laws of nature.

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.