--- In morelife@yahoogroups.com, "Andy" <endofthedream@...> wrote:

> I certainly don't disagree with your observations about the state of
> most people's health, their eating/exercise habits, and what that
> bodes for their future (and the country's as a whole).
>
> Where I depart from your position is in regard to "self-
> responsibility." This is distinct from your political views, which
> I am neither disputing nor challenging.

[Additional comment upon rereading:
You are quite incorrect here about its distinctness from my political views.
Self-responsibility is at the very basis of my philosophical foundations of an
optimal human society. No human society can ever function at all without it.
Thus, by disputing my position on self-responsibility, you are, in fact, totally
undercutting and in complete disagreement with my politics as well. --Paul]

> If I weren't apolitical I might very well be a libertarian. :-)

>[Actually, since "politics" (the study and guidance of the rules of
>relationships between individuals in society) is a necessary part of
>the behavior of everyone who interfaces with other humans and its
>principles are derived from more basic philosophic notions (in
>metaphysics, epistomology and ethics) which everyone has whether they
>think they do or not, you are being political every time you talk
>about human interfaces whether or not you think that you are.
>However, it is true that *primary* self-responsiblity, to the extent
>that it does not involve others is not a political idea. --Paul]


*****I was using "politics" in another way. Most dictionaries list
the first definition as something like this: "the activities of the
government, members of law-making organizations or people who try to
influence the way a country is governed." I was saying that in that
manner I am not political.

[The reason why most current dictionaries have distorted the original meaning of
"politics" into this form is because most people cannot conceive of a society
which has no governmental form to enforce and adjudicate acceptable patterns of
human inter-relationships. If a country or society is not governed at all (at
least not from the top down by some enforcers) then that current dictionary
meaning has no validity and we can then return to the root definition of
politics used by the Greek philosophers. However, even if one does accept the
current situation and the current definition of "politics" then you are still
political whether you take part in the organizations and manipulations of
current governmental machinery, or merely do nothing at all. In either case you
have made a clear choice with respect to the current political situation.
Everyone is political in the same sense as everyone has a philosophical outlook.
These are either explicit or implicit, but they are necessarily there. --Paul]

> What I am focusing on is the issue of "self-responsibility," and I
> want to suggest that **individual's don't have any choice in how they
> eat, exercise (or "decide" anything else for that matter!)**. This is
> probably inflammatory and the very notion may seem nonsensical to
> you. That's fine. But let me put it into context. What I am
> pointing to has to do with "choice" across-the-board: *all* choices
> that we make...none of them are truly "free." But for the moment
> let's look at merely the "eating choices."
>
>[The first problem with your statement is that you have not made it
>clear whether you mean *all* individuals "don't have any choice" or
>only some of them. I will assume the latter, since I know that *I* am
>free to choose within the bound of the actions which my nature allows
>me to do, and from what you have stated about your changes in eating
>habits, it appears that you also are free to choose at least to a
>similar degree. --Paul]


*****No, your assumption was not correct. In the comment above I was
referring to all individuals. And yes, I would agree, you are free
to choose.

[Which contradicts both your prior statement that you are referring to *all*
individuals (*I* am certainly one of them!) and also your statement below that
my choices are "determined". You appear to be writing in such a *loose* fashion
that basically anything goes, whether or not one part of what you say
contradicts another part or not! Any discourse of this sort is really quite
impossible. In order to reason and argue logically one must adhere to clear
definitions which do not change during the discourse (or if they do make that
very clear and correct things retroactively) and use principles of logical
reasoning. --Paul]

..within the bound of the actions which your nature
allows. In a similar sense, a person incarcerated in a 6' x 6' jail
cell is "free" in that he can roam "freely" within the 36 square feet
allotted to him. Your nature, your conditioning, your history, all
these things determine the choices you make.

[No! They determine the *boundaries* or range of freedom within which your
choice may then be made. They do *not* determine the exact choices which are
made. --Paul]

In this sense, you are not free.

[You are confusing "freedom" with "capability". No one is free to do anything of
which he is not capable. I am not free to walk through walls because I am not
capable of it. Nor am I free to fly unaided. But this is not the essential
meaning of "free". It merely sets the boundaries of the set of choice which one
is free to make. Take your jail cell example above. I am not free to walk
outside the cell trivially because I am not capable of doing so if the door is
solidly locked and the walls are impregnable to me. However, I am capable of
roaming around the cell and I have the freedom to choose whether I do so or
remain on one side of the cell only, say, sitting on my bed. --Paul]

Paul's "nature" could be different. He might have had any
one of the following: a different genetic makeup, a different IQ, or
different parents. Any variation would produce a different nature,
and the choices arising out of that variant nature might well be
different.

[Now there is a confusion of three things.
1) My genetically and environementally derived nature.
2) My freedom to act within its boundaries.
3) My freedom to alter the nature described by 1) by actions on my environment
and, thus, to modify the boundaries within which I am free to choose.

You seem to be saying that the 3) is totally impossible. However, you also seem
to be saying that 1) also implies the exact choices which are made in 2)
(although as I pointed out above, you keep contradicting yourself in this last).
--Paul]

Choices arise from the conditioning of the organism.

[I am going to restrict this to *human* organisms.
There are two mistakes here.
1) The nature and conditioning of a human only sets the limits of his choices.
2) The "conditioning" is not entirely external but can be itself part of the
choices which are made by a human. --Paul]

> To put that into context, I will quote Roy Walford in Beyond the 120
> Year Diet (pp. 16-17), "...you do have to change your attitude
> towards, and your built-in social programming about, food. But you
> **didn't write your own attitudes or programs anyway**. [emphasis
> added] **They have been written into you** [emphasis added] by the
> experiences of childhood and a lifelong daily barrage of slick
> advertising, which tires to make you believe that you are somehow
> deprived if you are no eating junk food, or that it's deliciously
> decadent and chic to be dining on the precursors of arteriosclerotic
> plaques...this notion of dire deprivation is simply a prejudice."
>
> What I am focusing on in the above quote is that our attitudes,
> beliefs, positions, about food/exercise are a form of
> social/societal *conditioning*. Madison Avenue & Big Business
> bombard our psyches all the time. Mommy and daddy, previously
> conditioned from *their* upbringing, support and nuture and enrich the
> conditioning of their offspring, until...at the age of "maturity,"
> the offspring no longer have the "freedom" to think "outside the
> box." Nearly everywhere we turn we are assaulted (I can't think of
> a more apt term) by advertisements and messages to "buy this," "eat
> this," "yummy," "delicious," "fast and easy," etc. It literally is
> a *programming*.
>
> [Your use of the word "assault" for "advertisements and messages"
>is completely distortional of the meaning of the word. The difference
>between the use of physical force and the use of speech is like night
>and day. Assault is by definition something that you cannot avoid and
>which physically damages you.

*****Hmmm. . . I checked several dictionaries and in no source could
I find a definition which limited the use of "assault" to only the
physical. Every dictionary I consulted included one or more of the
following: "a violent physical or verbal attack," "an unlawful threat
to do bodily injury to another" [a threat is communicated either
verbally, in writing or via physical demonstration], "a threat or
attempt to inflict offensive physical contact or bodily harm on a
person (as by lifting a fist in a threatening manner) that puts the
person in immediate danger of or in apprehension of such harm or
contact." These types of assaults may, in fact, be avoided. Nowhere
did I find a definition that included the stipulation (as you said)
that assault is "by definition something that you cannot avoid and
which physically damages you."

[Once again, this is because current dictionaries have become so distorted by
incorrect philosphical notions that they have blurred many of the original
meanings of words. However, even my Random House Webster's College Dictionary of
12 years ago states correctly that assault is 1) "sudden violent onslaught"; 2)
"in law: an unlawful physical attack upon another, esp. an attempt to do bodily
harm"; 3) "rape". It is clear that these are all *physical* and the pain is
unavoidable given that the assault actually occurs (except that this may not be
totally true for rape - which may be mostly a violation of liberty). --Paul]

I was using the word in a context similar to the colloquial
phrase, "an assault upon one's senses."

[And it is just this incorrect and philosophically distorted usage which I
refuse to accept. I repeat!! The whole idea of an assault on one's senses
(except by blinding light, physically harmful noise, physically toxic gases or
pain which physiologically harms the body, is contradictory to the meaning of
the word assault and should be eschewed from all logical writing. Such usages of
the word assault are a product of the hype and distortion of the media and of
politicians. And this is coming from someone who says that he is "apolitical"!!
Ha! --Paul]

And while such an assault
might be physically damaging, it could also be merely an unpleasant
sensation (like walking into a room that one finds hideously
decorated and thus experiences an assault on his/her visual senses).

[Nonsense! That may be displeasing and/or make one unhappy, but it is *not*
assault and I will not let you get away with describing it that way on this
group. It is just such distortions of word meanings which must be criticized at
every point if one is ever to be able to understand reality. --Paul]

>[Words and images of advertising are things which you can turn off or
>not look at and which even when you do sense them your mind has the
>capability of ignoring any effects. --Paul]


*****I do not agree. Your mind will do what it has been programmed
to do. Some people's minds are conditioned in a manner such as you
describe above. And those folks will, in fact, be able to ignore the
effects of the words and images. Others, not similarly programmed,
will be incapable of do this.

[But one can change the programming and one could have already changed it so
that such images can be ignored, or not allowed one's mind to be programmed that
way in the first place. I have done this and so have many others. That is one of
the choices available to all humans worthy of the name. It is within the
capabilities of the vast majority of the members of the species homo sapiens.
--Paul]

>[The term "assault" is not only not "apt", it is in essense the same
>kind of destructive propaganda that you are accusing others of using. --Paul]


*****In accusing me of disseminating "destructive propaganda" it
seems that you are suggesting that I have a cause to further
(definition of propaganda: "ideas, facts, or allegations spread
deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing
cause"). I have no allegiance to any particular cause and thus no
cause to further.

[Ah, but you do! You have the exact same "cause" as all the others who currently
use distortional language and spout philosophical nonsense. This is just as true
whether you are doing it explicitly and intentionally, or implicitly and
unintentionally. The latter is even worse because in doing so you are merely a
dupe and pawn of those evil persons who purposefully seek to obfuscate the
language and blind people to the true underlying reality. (Take another view of
the movie "Matrix" and think deeply about it!)--Paul]


Using "assault," I was simply being descriptive,
and perhaps, taking poetic license in the use of that word.

[In the last, "taking poetic license", you finally admit that your usage of
"assault" is really a distortion (a kind of fraud or intellectual dishonesty) of
the fundamental meaning of the word. One should not take poetic license unless
one is writing poetry or polemics, and if the latter, it is clear the hyperbole
is being used. --Paul]


>[What you are missing is that every human individual begins by
>imitating and programming himself from the world around him. --Paul]


*****What you are missing is that no individual programs himself.
Programming happens, automatically. The individual is the recipient
of the programming but does not "do" it himself.

[Then who does the programming? And if anyone can do it to another, then why can
one not do it to one's self. I know for certain that I have reprogrammed myself.
In fact, everyone who has every broken himself of a habit has reprogrammed
himself. There is nothing automatic about *any* programming since normal brain
healthy individuals can learn to choose to see it happening and to either accept
it or not. It is only when humans are very immature in brain and mind that
programming is automatic. Once they achieve true self-awareness, even as small
children, they gain the power to not accept various kinds of programming. If you
have had children you must be aware that they are not simply maleable pets which
can be made to be anything at all even of which they are capable by means of
programming (for that matter, pets also cannot be that easily molded by
programming). --Paul]


>[What you are saying is quite true for small children, but it should
>be far less true for older children if they are are raised to
>question, be skeptical and think independently, and by the time they
>are adults, it should no longer be true at all. To the extent that it
>is not true, such individuals are not really adults. Yes, it is true
>tnat many parents, all governments, media and commercial advertising
>appear to be working very hard to actually prevent people from
>becoming mature thinking, independent adults, but many get there in
>spite of it (I am happy to see). As those who continue to break free
>from their "in a box" thinking and inconsistent emotional programming
>prove, it can be done. All that one needs to do is to begin to stop
>evading, to *see* through the illogic and obfuscation, and to begin
>to think! I did it. Kitty did it. You did it (in one area). And so
>can anyone else if they really want and decide to. --Paul]


*****What I am suggesting in all of this is that the programming is,
by its very nature, intertwined with one's thinking, regardless of
whether one is a child, older child, or an adult.

[Of course programming is so "intertwined"! Everything is limited by the
environment within which it operates. However, that does not mean that its
choices within those limitations are fixed. It also does not imply that the
limitation boundaries themselves are immutable and forever fixed. Part of the
choices that a person can make are to expand his freedom (ie. the limitations
within which he presently operates). For example, a person in prison does this
by escaping, just as a person in a highly restricted society expands his freedom
of actions by leaving it to a freer society. I do this when I go to the US to
get certain supplements such as DHEA which are forbidden to me in Canada.
--Paul]


This programming dictates how one thinks, the pathways down which a particular
individual's thought processes may go.

[No. It does not *dictate* how one thinks. It only provides boundaries of one's
thought which set up the initial conditions from which one can work forward in
order to expand one's thought boundaries. Gaining knowledge and thinking, by
nature, has no limitations beyond those of the time and basic intelligence of
the individual involved. --Paul]


This "limitation" is present
always; it does not evaporate when becomes more mature or more
rational. Those qualities are simply the result of that particular
person's wiring. Being logical in one's thinking does not undo the
programming. Being logical is the result of a specific type of
programming. (Another person might be programmed to respond more to
feelings than to thoughts, and, as a result might be more artistic in
their expression.)

[You are very wrong here. If you have never changed your own programming (habits
of mind) then I am very sorry for you, that you have never learned to do such an
important thing and had such an important experience. In fact, if you really
think that such change is impossible and if it really is impossible for you,
then you are little more than a robot, in my opinion, and I have no interest in
any further discussion with you. It is therefore my plan to end this message
response and to not accept any others from you. There is simply no point in
discussion with someone who is totally convinced that all his thoughts are
already programmed to be as they are. Under these conditions, discussion becomes
truly meaningless. --Paul]


[snip]
> For me, not making such a decision (to lose weight) is simply the
> result of the innate conditioning-in-the-moment to which every
> individual is subject. We all are "brainwashed" or "programmed"
> or "conditioned." It's not a matter of freedom of thought so much
> as freedom from thought. Thought, the past tense of thinking, is
> memory. And memory is the conditioning to which we are all exposed
> (although we each are conditioned in very individual ways).
>
> [Please quit using this collective "we"! "we" are *not* all so
>conditioned! I am not, and Kitty is not, and so are most others on
>this group and many elsewhere not so unable to think independently.


*****Sorry. You are conditioned. Kitty is conditioned. And so are
*all* the others on this group (myself included). Conditioning is
both individual and collective and it is a product of the nature of
the human mind. No one escapes it. Just test the theory; try this:
if you place your soap on the sink in the bathroom, on the right side
of the sink, for instance, move it, for a few days, so that it is on
the left side of the sink. Watch how often you reach for the right
side of the sink, even though you "know" the soap is not there any
longer. That is a simple demonstration of conditioning.

[It is a demonstration of habits! It has no relation whatever to whether those
habits can be changed and certainly not whether one can think independently of
one's environment. You totally confuse "habits" with "inevitability". I and
everyone else have many background procesors which independently and
subconsciously do many things for us. These are our learned habits. However, all
of them can be reprogrammed to behave differently. In the above case my
background handwashing processor does not yet "know" that the soap is now on the
other side even though some other part of my brain does. However, after a short
time (even shorter, if I work at it purposefully) that processor will also learn
this fact and form a new habit. This is the way the mind works. People
constantly reprogram themselves in this manner and they can reprogram thinking
habits in the same manner. --Paul]

Our driving of automobiles, initially a learning skill, eventually becomes
conditioned. Eventually, when we change to a different vehicle, we
still tend (for a few days, until the new conditioning takes over) to
reach for objects (gear shift, radio dial, heater switch) that were
in a different location in the previous vehicle.

Conditioning of thought streams, mental patterns surrounding ideas
and cognition is NO different. It happens the same way, just more
subtly. Conditioning is a function of memory and without it you
would have great difficulty functioning in the world. It is a by-
product of the 'architecture' of your brain.

[We have no difference here. However, all such conditioning can be reprogrammed
just as all habits can be changed. Furthermore, your argument bears no logical
connection to your statment that one is not free do decide and that all ones
decisions are fixed by one's genetic nature and one's environment. If that were
true then it would be very hard for my philosphical ideas to be much different
than those of my parents and my siblings. But I can assure you that I am
diametrically opposed to them. The same is true for Kitty with most of her
siblings. --Paul]


[snip]
> Furthermore, if there is no such thing as true responsibility then
the bad parents, the advertisers, Madison Avenue, big business, big
government - none of them are responsible either. We are all
automatons and everything is determined; so we may as well quit
talking and just sit back and let it all happen. After all it is
going to do so anyway, so why fight it or worrry about it. --Paul]


*****I don't know if everything is determined, but thought arises
from stored locations in the brain.

[Since we do not yet really know how the brain functions to become the mind, it
is important not to confuse the two of them here. There is much more to the mind
than memories. There are also programs and methods and modes of operation. Yes,
these two are "stored" in the sense that they are due to physiological patterns
within the brain, but that is beside the point. They are at least as different
from the data of memory as is a computer program from the data it works on.
--Paul]


[BTW, for
clarification: "thought" is the past tense of the verb "to think" and
a "thought," being in the past, is, in fact, a memory functioning in
the present.]

[This is mere sophistry. From that point of view *everything* is in the past and
there is no present at all. One could use the word "thinking" instead of
"thought" to avoid the past connotation. --Paul]


A thought that is not stored in one or more locations
in the brain will not appear in consciousness.

[Actually, from that point of view, know one really even knows precisely what a
thought really is. It is certainly not something which is stored in any one
place exactly as it enters one's consciousness. It is more of a conglomerate of
results from an enormous number of brain areas coalescing together into a
conscious thought. Thus, more properly stated each thought is newly born at the
instance in which the conscious senses it. Thus, no one actually ever again
rethinks the exact same thought. Yes, thoughts are that detailed, subtle and
that complex! Just as is every human being so completely unique from every
other. --Paul]

When we have a "new"
thought, it may consist of the confluence of two (or more) previously-
stored thoughts. And in that sense only, it is "new," a result of
sythesis.

[In fact, that is true of every thought that anyone ever has if examined in full
detail, since everyone is in a different environment of at least time and place.
--Paul]


I agree with your concluding statement above: there is no reason to
fight it or worry about it. When thoughts arise, if their impulse is
strong enough, we follow them. If conflicting thoughts
arise, "should I do this or should I do that," whichever thought
contains the strongest impulse (measured in electrical signal
potential) will be the one that is "chosen." Of course, it is just
this wording that contributes to the illusion that we have a free
choice in the matter. It is the use of this type of language that
creates the illusion of control.

[Now it becomes clear that what you are really arguing about is the existence or
non-existence of what is philosophically called "free will". If you had stated
that clearly up front, then much of my time would have been saved. The existent
of Free Will (like the existent of God) is not something which can be proven or
disproven. However, as with God, the correct logical approach is to use the more
practical and useful assumption. Just as it does not benefit one to assume the
existence of God (and in fact may harm one if the God that exists is assumed to
have certain characteristics), so it does one no good to think that we do not
have free will and that all of our actions are fully determined and beyond our
control. It appears that Free Will is an emergent property - a characteristic of
any material structure which reaches a certain very high level of degrees of
freedom. Somewhere between the most primitive animals and man this property of
mind has emerged. Yes, if one had a large enough computer to hold the entire
physiological information to describe a person and his complete environment and
programming sophisticated to describe all the relationships between all those
variables, then it is possible that the actions of a given individual could be
determined. However, quantum mechanics and chaos theory suggest that even this
is not possible. In any case, every human is so complex that such complexity
(including his total environment will be beyond any computer capabilities for
eons yet to come (if ever). Therefore, for all practical purposes it makes much
more sense to act as if we do in fact have Free Will. Finally, I have no desire
to have any relationship with anyone who is not prepared to act in this manner.
As I suggested before and I now state even more clearly this will be your last
message on this topic. --Paul]


> Thus, where I take issue with your comments above is in regard
> to "self-responsibility." It is clear to me that people
> make "choices" in all areas of their lives (including what they
> injest). But these choices are not "free."
>
> [The last sentence is self-contradictory. A choice implies the
>ability to do one thing or another. If a person is not free to choose
>from two alternatives, then by definition he cannot be said to make a
>choice. By trying to have it both ways you are again being
>inconsistent and essentially spouting meaningless verbiage. --Paul]


*****I agree. I did not word that sentence properly. I should have
written, "It is clear that choices happen

[Again, this is not the meaning of "choice". Choices are actively *made*. If
some event merely "happens", then at best you could say that it was an
"alternative" of several possibilities. OTOH, if everything is fully determined,
then no alternatives are actually possible. Each event that happens must
necessarily have happened exactly as it did. --Paul]

in all areas of people's
lives (including what they inject)." That is what I meant to say.
Those choices, however, occur PRIOR to the individual's conscious
awareness of them.

[And after becoming aware, the individual can then still make another choice.
--Paul]

This is a very disturbing notion to many people (you included).

[Please do not presume that you know how I feel about anything. In fact, the
ideas and meaning of Free Will are not at all "disturbing" to me! I have been
thinking about it for at least 40 years (when I invented my evolutionary
disproof of the existence of Free Will) and have debated it seriously with
others off and on during that time. --Paul]

We
are so indoctrinated (and in love with) the idea that we have "free
agency" in all that we do, that the mind often rebels at any
suggestion that it may be otherwise.

[Again your use of the collective "we" is completely out of place. You have no
real knowledge of the thought processes of anyone else. Speak for yourself only.
Until you begin to do so, your arguments are merely exagerated posturing.
--Paul]

However, since the late '60s it has been known (by neuroscientists)
that such is not the case.

[Nonsense! No such thing is *known*! Furthermore, philosophers had been debating
this question for thousands of years before that. There have been *no*
discoveries in neuroscience which have made any substantive difference to this
debate. --Paul]


Repeatedly, tests have been performed
that demonstrate there is an (approximate) 500 millisecond delay (1/2
a second) from the arising of the neuro-electrical signal which
represents the "start" of a thought, until the "arrival" of the
thought (electrical signal) in the conscious area of a person's
brain. The tricky thing is this: when the thought arrives at the
conscious level (that is the moment when we would assert "I have a
thought"), the thought carries with it the *sense* that it was
created at that very instant, when, in reality, it "began" about half
a second prior - when we had no conscious knowledge of the thought.

[Which has no relevance to the Free Will debate since the "choice" could well
have been made subconsciously at the time of the start of the thought and
*before* the perception of it. In addition, "having* a choice is not the same
thing as "making" a choice and it does not mean that one has to act on that
thought. Finally, there is a major difference between what people *say* that
they will choose and what they actually do choose. This is because new thoughts
based on new conditions, new input and the practicality of acting rather than
merely imagining action all conspire to make a major difference. --Paul]

This has been validated for ALL modes of perception (visual,
auditory, mental: as is perceiving one's thoughts). There is
approximately a half second dealy in "transmission," so all
perception that is "received" - on a conscious level - is actually of
the past. (See Benjamin Libet's experiments in this regard; others
have duplicated his work. Libet is a professor emeritus of the
Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis.)

[As I stated, these empirical results have no relevance to the Free Will
question. Only small minds (professor emeritus or not) think so. --Paul]


> We are all at the beck-
> and-call of our innate conditioning-in-the-moment.
>
> [As infants and small children, yes, individuals are this last. But
>it is up to each human to grow up and break free of it - to gain his
>essential human mode of behavior. --Paul]
>
>
> You may assert that people do change. And I would certainly agree!
>
> [Then you agree that individuals *can* change and thus are *free*
>to change. So why do you keep on saying that they can't? How
>inconsistent can you get? Just which exact individuals are free and
>which are not? --Paul]


*****Perhaps at this point you are somewhat more clear on what I was
saying: change happens, clearly. People *do* change. I am simply
saying that how and when one wants to change is not a necessary
determinant of how and when one actually changes. The thoughts
arise: "I want to be more healthy. So: I will change my eating. I
will cut out all sugary sweet foods." Whether or not that actually
happens is a function of UNconscious thought processes which arise
from an individual's innate conditioning-in-the-moment. I am saying
that we (all humans, and that includes you Paul) don't control
thought; thought controls us.

[But since I *am* my thoughts (as well as my body), that is the same thing as
saying that I control myself. There is no escape from responsibility for your
actions in this manner. If you wish to take that road of lacking Free Will, then
since the complexity of your brain, body and environment allows decisions to
happen in your brain which cause behaviors which are good or bad for your long
range happiness and longevity, I need only state that my interest is in dealing
only with those in whose brains such optimal decisions arise. For the others,
whose brains do not produce such optimal decisions and cannot even produce the
decision to change their habits of mind so that better right day-to-day
practical decisions do happen, I have little use. --Paul]

> In fact, I would add that our innate conditioning-in-the-moment
> changes moment to moment.
>
> [There is no such existent "our" which can be conditioned or not.
>As for change, yes, everything changes moment by moment. However,
>there is also a short-term permanence and stability associated with
>the changes. Again see my essay at:
>http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/we.html for details. --Paul]


*****I like that oxymoron! "short-term permancence" Hahaha!!!

[Yes, "steady state" or "persistence" would have been a better phrasing.
However, since, as I argument, the whole idea of "permanence" is inconsistent
with reality, the idea of "short-term permanence" is not really so bad after
all. --Paul]

[Note: at this point I snipped out some repetative dialogue even from this
poster since it contributed nothing to the argument at hand. --Paul]

> And this input alters our conditioning. Your conditioning
> won't be the same after reading this email.
>
> [No. My *information* will not be the same - that it quite
>different. I cannot eradicate the information which I take in
>(although I can ignore and not make use of it and in time I can even
>forget it) just as I cannot unring a bell. It is an event which has
>happened and will have effects. However, my mind has a major amount
>of control over the effects it will have therein. --Paul]


*****And, as I've point out, "you" don't have control over your
thoughts (or your mind). It is actually the other way around. You
are not the driver of the car; you are that which is driven.

[This all really depends on the meaning of "you" (your "identity"). The metaphor
of car and driver is not applicable to the mind and the body, since they are
inseparable. If one identifies one's self only with one's body then what you say
is correct. However, if one includes one's mind *and* one's body, then one *is*
one's thoughts and thus, one is the "driver" of one's self. I submit this latter
is a more correct and productive viewpoint. --Paul]


The
moment you are conscious of a thought (E.g., "I will ignore Andy's
ravings, he has clearly gone around the bend") that thought is
already in the past; it occured about 500 milliseconds before
you "heard" (in your mind's eye) the thought. It arises from a part
of the brain of which we are not conscious. It arises prior to our
conscious awareness of it. And thus we have NO control over it.

[Who ever said that all choice and control must necessarily be conscious? I
would strongly argue that most of it is subconscious. It is the result of good
habits of mind which have been programmed into the mind by the person himself,
very often with the help of others. --Paul]

We can't stop it, emend it, alter it, or block it. All we can do is
receive it (on a conscious level).

[But no thought is ever an end which must necessarily be acted upon. One can
always decide to think again, further, more deeply, etc. This happens all the
time. --Paul]

This may not be apparent until
one starts to look closely at the process of one's thoughts, because
the nature of thought is to "suggest" to the thinker that he/she HAS
control, that he or she is agency which willfully produces the
thoughts. But it just isn't so.

[But what you don't seem to understand is that this makes no essential
difference to the reality of how we act and are responsible for such actions
(just as the belief in a purely "watchmaker" God makes no difference to our
practical lives). --Paul]



> Most of the changes to conditioning are minor and
> subtle. But sometimes they can be severe and significant. E.g.,
> someone coming off of a near-fatal heart attack may adopt a
> stringent, rigorous new life-style of eating healthfully and
> exercising wisely. And then others, in the same situation, won't.
> Why the difference? It is all the result of how the individual's
> brain reacts to the sensory input and its interaction with the
> innate conditioning-in-the-moment.
>
> [Which is not by whim, but is based on the hierarchy of values of
>things in reality which are in your brain. All your emotions and
>decisions are based on those things which you value even though you
>may not consciously know it. --Paul]


*****Exactly! "even though you may not consciously know it" -- You
are pointing here to the nature of how thought works: it arises from
a constellation of thoughts/memories/impulses many of which we may be
entirely unaware of (and, being unaware of them, we have not the
slightest control over them).

[Ah, but he *did* have control (in the manner in which I have described above)
over the fact that their basis is in his brain and over the habits of mind which
enabled them to be generated as they were. It is only *after* setting up all
these initial conditions that the resultant thoughts are semi-automatically
generated. However, even then the thoughts themselves cause feedback changes to
the conditions which generated them and, thus, can immediately cause their own
modification. Thus, both the basis of thoughts and the habits of mind which
generate certain thoughts and not others is in a constant state of flux. This is
actually very little different than the homeostatic mechanisms which govern all
parts of our body. The main difference is that with the mind, the points of
homeostatic stability are extremely manifold and, thus, allow an enormous choice
of alternative outcomes. --Paul]


How often has one experienced the
thought "I wish I didn't feel this way!" and yet...the feeling
persists. It is all working via the unconscious, arising from
programming over which the individual has NO say.

[Again this is incorrect for many people and is possible to not be so for all
who can correctly be termed human. Certainly, I have had such thoughts many
times in my life and after I have worked to get my emotions to be consistent
with my conscious logical thinking (by reprogramming them), I no longer had such
thoughts. The major time this was apparent (and the first time that I
consciously understood how it worked) was during my early 20's when I first read
the works of Ayn Rand and terminated my bleeding heart liberal socialist
thinking and emoting. Of course, this also has no relevance to the debate about
the existence of Free Will because my mind could have been determined to do this
given the environment that reality determined it to perceive.

For those who are interested and who have never done it consciously, let me
describe how I reprogram my emotions (so that they can then become important
tools of cognition for me).
1) Any emotion needs to be seen as a habit - a subconscious reaction to some
event which assigns some positive or negative emotional value to the event.
2) If you have emotional responses to events which are not consistent with how
you actually value the event when it is consciously examined, then this is an
unhealthy conflict situation for your mind. It is also not very functional in
that you cannot rely on your emotional response as a quick indicator of how you
should act.
3) Just as with "breaking" a habit, the first step to changing an emotion is to
recognize when it occurs and not evade it. You must bring it clearly into your
consciousness and focus on it.
4) It may even require some other observer to give you a hand with this (just as
it ofter requires some other person to remind you that you are performing a bad
habit).
5) With a bit of work and help, you will soon be able to detect the "bad"
emotion earlier and earlier and to focus strongly on it.
6) Your conscious focusing should consist of basically "squelching" the emotion!
Each time it occurs and you catch it happening, review with yourself the reasons
why it is an incorrect emotion (ie. inconsistent with your rationally held
convictions), and tell yourself very strongly (as with an admonishing parent or
conscience) "I must not feel that way".
7) In time by doing this process, you will find that you do no longer have that
emotional response to that event.
8) A variant depending on the particular situation, is to replace the "bad"
emotion, by another emotional response to the same event. This just means that
in 6), instead of merely denying or squelching the emotion after reviewing your
rational evaluation of the event (and leaving an emotional vacuum with respect
to the witnessed event), you image feeling towards it in an emotional manner
which is fully consistent with your rational thinking. --Paul]


>[That is why it is so important for each of us to make sure that his
>fundamental values are consistent with his conscious reasoned
>thinking. Again, humans are not Pavlovian dogs! --Paul]


*****If each of us were able to do that, yes, there would be
consistency. And yet, we have no power in that regard.

[Speak for yourself! *I* certainly do and I have worked to do it constantly for
the last 40 years. --Paul]


We may
attempt to change the conditioning we "inherit," and sometimes that
works, we are successful. This, again, gives rise to the (false)
notion of a "free agency" in ourselves. But, if we're honest, we
will observe that there are many other times when such a change is
attempted and it doesn't happen.

[There is always the potential to change anything about one's self which one
wants to change which is not physiologically impossible. To *not* accept this is
the *real* dishonesty! Once again, if you would quit using this "we" and "our",
then you would find your thinking on these matters to be much clearer. --Paul]


You, Paul, conclude that this means either we weren't strong enough
or there were other, stronger, conflicting desires which overwhelmed
the desired impulse.

[No, that is not what I conclude. You have misunderstood. My main conclusion is
that such people have chosen to evade reality and to choose not to really think
at all! --Paul]

I don't actually disagree with that. That is
exactly what happens. All I am suggesting is that the "mechanism" of
the change, whether it will happen or not, is not "up to us" --
meaning it is not in our "conscious" control.

[Mostly not directly and immediately, I agree. However, that does not mean that
it is not up to our long range overall control. --Paul]


[snip of repetative dialogue about the lack of permenance of reality. --Paul]

> It is simply not a matter of having (or not having) a "strong will,"
> since possessing that attribute is also a function of one's innate
> conditioning-in-the-moment. If it is present in a particular
> individual, then adopting what Walford refers to as "rational self-
> restraint" will happen. If a "strong will" is absent, the changes
> won't occur (and those of us viewing the person will conclude that
> he/she "lacked the will power" to change).
>
> [Now you are *really* getting inconsistent. First, you say it is
not a matter of having a "strong will" and then you say: "if
a 'strong will' is absent the changes won't occur". You can't have it
both ways.


*****Again, I apparently did not make myself clear: at any one
moment, when a choice has to occur between two (or more) options, the
choice which actually happens will be in congruence with the option
that carries with it the strongest "charge." That charge
(or "electrical potential" as the scientists refer to it, is
essentially a neuro-electrical/chemical signal arising
unconsciously. In 500 milliseconds or less, the signal "arrives" at
the conscious part of the brain, giving rise to the (illusory) sense
that the decision is being made *at that moment.* It actually
happened, unconsciously, a brief moment prior to the
conscious "seeing" or "hearing" the thought. The conscious mind
(that part of us that feels as if we are a doer) receives it after-
the-fact.

[And as I have explained, this empirical result is quite irrelevant to the
problem of Free Will. You are beginning to remind me of the maxim which I apply
to a number of (mostly) young posters: "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous
thing". This is related to another such maxim: "S/he does not even know enough
yet to know what s/he does not know". --Paul]


[Snipped more repetative dialogue about humans acting as robots with no control
over what they do. All of which is a totally pessimistic and utterly impractical
view of the reality of human behavior. It leads to nothing but resignation to
the current horror of the world and the futility of trying to do anything. I see
nothing to be gained by accepting such a viewpoint and everything to be lost.
Since the existence of Free Will is as unprovable as is the non-existence of
God, the only rational solution is to accept the most practical side of the
question, and I would maintain that means to act as if one has Free Will.
--Paul]


>[One can only be a victim of a violation of one's liberty or to one's
>property. It is even inconsistent with your own argument since if one
>is truly not free then one can never be a victim at all since one has
>no freedom (let alone liberty - political freedom) to violate.

*****Again, I don't know where you get YOUR definitions from nor why
you think that the sole definition YOU quote is either the "correct"
or the only one, but my use of the word "victim" is not
inconsistent. A dictionary defintion of 'victim'is: "one that is
acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent," and,
another is "one that is injured under any of various conditions." In
these senses we are "victims" of our conditioning (although I was
making light of the situation by using that terminology; you
apparently took it very seriously).

[Once more this is not the original and essential meaning of the word "victim".
My definitions are given at the beginning of the Natural Social Contract. The
terms are precisely defined there because otherwise their definitions would be
so ambiguous that basically "anything goes" (as with your current dictionary
defintions). The key terms with "victim" are "injured" and "by force". Force
implies physical force and "injured" implies "uncontrollable reduction of value
state". Current dictionary definitions of most of these contentious terms are
not only ambiguous and inconsistent in total, but they are grossly distorted by
the devastatingly harmful philosophy which is underlying the problems of current
societies. For that reason, the only way that clear thinking can begin to
function is to create newly defined terms and eschew the current standard
dictionary definitions. Otherwise, one is already acknowledging defeat at the
hands of one's opponents. It is a little like continuing to vote when one no
longer agrees that governments have any legitimacy at all. --Paul]


> I don't disagree that *some* entities which appear to be human do
> operate like that [as robots]. However, to the extent that they do
> they are not actually human.


*****As YOU define a "human being." What makes you so certain that
your (limited) definition is accurate?

[As stated, it is the only kind of life-form which has the essence of being
human, and ultimately it is the only kind which I will accept as a Freeman (see
the Natural Social Contract for a definition:
http://selfsip.org/solutions/socialcontract_annotated.html ). --Paul]

>[I, for one, want nothing to do with them. --Paul]


*****Why cut yourself off from a chunk of the human race? Perhaps
you may learn something of benefit from exchanges with
this "entities."

[If they act as automatons without any control over themselves, then there is
nothing more to learn from them than by studing any other lower life-form or
inanimate object. In fact, without Free Will there is no essential difference
between animate and inanimate objects! Afterall, *all* matter does and can move
by one means or another. --Paul]


>[Frankly, I am only concerned about those entities who show the
>essential characteristics of a human being. --Paul]


*****As YOU define a "human being." What makes you so certain that
your (limited) definition is accurate?

[It is not a matter of accuracy. It merely defines that subset of homo sapiens
who are candidates for signing the Natural Social Contract. And thus, those with
whom I will enter into "equity relationships". Again for definitions see the
Natural Social Contract at:
http://selfsip.org/solutions/socialcontract_annotated.html --Paul]


>[or exhibit some potential to do so. --Paul]


*****Who determines when "some potential" (or enough potential) has
been exhibited? What makes the yardstick of measurement accurate?

[I determine it by my choice of to whom I wish to relate. That is my prerogative
and I use my own yardstick. I allow no one else to make that determination for
me. --Paul]


> If you are interested in exploring this further, I would be pleased
> to elaborate more fully. If you feel this is something which should
> be addressed in the open forum (or you wish to respond to it there
> rather than directly with me), feel free to post what I've written
> along with your response. Or, we can just continue this dialogue
> there, privately. Or, you may find the position so repugnant that
> you do not wish to attend to it at all. Any of these options is
> fine with me.

> [Mostly I find it a great pity that a person who appears to be as
>intelligent as you are can be so completely and utterly confused. --Paul]


*****I will certainly admit that the initial letter to you was not
well-expressed. In a few places it was either confusing or not well
presented.

I find it a great pity that a person who appears to be as intelligent
as you are is so angry, short-tempered, inflexible, and arrogant.

You clearly have the mental capacity for much good, and yet you seem
to hold your thoughts as The Only Way to look at things. Certainly
you need not agree with me. (I would assert you can only do what is
within the range of *your* conditioning.) But the disdain (bordering
on hostility) with which you respond does a disservice to your
intelligence and your potential to be of service to those on this
list (and elsewhere). It would not hurt you to temper your well-
honed wit with empathy.

[I left the above in because I choose never to censor direct attacks on my
character. However, I will not honor the attack with any rebuttal. My work and
my writings can speak for themselves. The only thing that I will say is that
those who use words like "inflexibility" and "arrogant" should be more careful
of there meanings before using them. To paraphrase the words of Barry Goldwater:
"To patiently accept unreason and illogic is no virtue, and to proudly state
what one has determined to be true of reality is no vice". --Paul]


> In closing, I am reminded of when I met with several psychologists
> and philosophers (I teach at a college in New Jersey and have
> access to these folks on a daily basis);
>
> [Even more than for you, I have pity for your poor students, if the
> confusion displayed here is evident in your teaching. --Paul]

*****Just another example of the lack of compassion that I pointed to
above.

[Although some people (as with Ayn Rand) do use the word "pity" with the major
implication of "contempt". In my dictionary and my usage, pity certainly has the
implication of sympathy and compassion, and that is truly how I meant it. On the
other hand "compassion" does not necessarily imply either acceptance, tolerance
or forgiveness and I certainly do not regard you with these. --Paul]


The above comment was wholly unnecessary. It served to add
nothing to the dialogue

[True enough, but it did show my sympathy for other human beings. --Paul]


other than to demonstrate your contempt for the things I said.

[Once again, it is not wrong to have contempt for false and harmful statements.
--Paul]


And thus, another demonstration of your arrogance.

[No. Arrogance is "*unjustified* or *offensive* display of superiority or
self-importance". First of all, what is unjustified or offensive is not
objectively determinable, but is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Secondly,
I have never stated or even implied that *I* am in any manner superior to others
(except those who are nothing but robots), nor that *I* am in any manner more
important than others. --Paul


> we hashed this about for several hours.
> At first many were resistant to it. Eventually they all had
> to agree that it "made sense," but I remember one of the of the
> psychologists saying that although she agreed with where the
> arguments led, to the notion that there really isn't any "free
> will," that all decisions/choices arise out of conditioned belief
> systems already in place before the moment of choice/decision
> occurs, that the notion of life without free will was "unbearable"
> to her and thus, despite the apparent "evidence," she still chose
> to "believe that humans have free will." And that, I would assert,
> is a result of her conditioning! :-)))
>
> [Actually, the problem of the existence of "free will" (which you
>raised here at the end for the first time) is really quite different
>from the problem of social conditioning which you raised earlier.
>Free will can only be seen as a property of complex systems which
>emerges when they reach sufficient conscious mental complexity.


*****With an undergrad degree in phliosophy, amounting to over 45
credit hours, I can state without hesitation that YOUR definition
of "free will" - while not incorrect - is only ONE definition. There
are others. Within the field of Metaphysics, "free will" is often
studied and discussed using the definition, "the freedom of humans to
make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine
intervention." The issue of "prior causes" is what produced much
heated discussion!

[When discussions degerate to the stage of listing one's credentials, it is
clearly time for them to end. I could as easily state (as I mentioned above)
that I have been reading and thinking about Free Will and other basic
philosphical questions for 45 *years* (not merely having taken 45 credit hours).
I certainly know there are many other ways to define the idea of Free Will and
to postulate an explanation for it. I merely stated the only one which makes any
sense to me. --Paul]

>[Big snip here]

>[I will be addressing the subject of free will
>at length sometime in one of my essays on http://selfsip.org
>However, for now I address myself to the many people who know that
>humans have free will and/or are not concerned about the issue. The
>rest are of little concern to me, since if they don't have free will
>they cannot know anything anyway --Paul]


*****This is a nonsequitur: not having free will does not imply that
one cannot know anything.

[Yes, it does. Without the ability to choose one thing or another it is
impossible to know the truth or falsity of anything. All events of reality would
just "happen". All descriptions of reality would just "be". There could be no
basis to *decide" whether one is truer than another. In fact, the whole meaning
of truth would cease to exist. There would be nothing more than a mere
succession of events forever onward without any meaning or purpose for any of
it. --Paul]


>[and their opinions, since they did not choose, them are really not
>*their's* anyway. --Paul]

*****You're correct. In a sense. Viewed alternately, they
are "their's" in that it was they who articulated the opinion; the
opinion was put forth via their vocal chords.

[No. They would be just meaningless emanations of reality that just "happened"
to come out of their mouths. --Paul]


~ andy