The Human Animal (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, August 13, 2009, 17:02 (5580 days ago) @ David Turell

How do you claim free will when you don't control your thoughts? When I finished my stint with Buddhism, I was no better at *controlling* thought, only focusing my mind--but you still get errant thoughts no matter how hard you try to stick to one topic.
> 
> I'm interested in your self-proclaimed lack of mind control. I think it is a matter of practice. If I am sleepy I can wander a bit, but when I am rested and interested in a subject, I can really concentrate, just as in testing. Everyone is different. I'm convinced my will is absolutely free. What is not free is my concern for others in society, or for my wife.
> - What I'm trying to say is that it isn't as clear cut as you're saying it is. We *CAN* make decisions in the present moment, however the ideas that influence those decisions aren't all *willed.* When you couple this with Libet's experiments that show that our brains seem to make decisions before we're consciously aware of making them, the case for a penultimate free will isn't on as firm of a ground as one would like. (Google Benjamin Libet's experiments.) His experiments were in the context of movement, but the questions it raises about free will make the certainty of free will much less settled, in my mind. - Here, I remember dhw saying he was interested about how many writers don't seem to know what their characters were going to do in advance, they just "push them along." I think this might be what he's talking about. The idea of what to do next just "comes." They don't forcefully *will* what happens next. Even myself, when I write I build a psych profile for a character, and I let the characters move within that "box" as it were. - > > The second is (hopefully) Mutual of Omaha, a company who made the surprising decision to sell their health insurance unit last year. I'm intrigued by this...
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> They may have decided to beat Obama to the punch and get out before the storm. A goverment insurance program will be very expensive to the country, and when tested in court under the 14th Amendment, 1st section, the Equal Protection Clause, everyone will have to be covered equally: huge expense, huge rationing, probably coverage of illegal aliens (given liberal federal judges, etc. - That is actually what I was considering. A company with that kind of foresight is a damn good company to work for. Part of my desire for a Master's in CS is so I reach "international" standing. (Master's will get you a job in any country.) If things continue to financially deteriorate in the U.S. I'll move to Switzerland. (Or somewhere else, in general.) - And now you know why I favor kings over democracy--everyone in my generation and in the one just before me feels entitled to health care. They don't see it as a privelege--and it IS a privelege. Someone always pays the doctor *somehow.* In a democracy--even in ours--if the plebs want something they can vote it for themselves. How is this any different than a tyrant? You and other people I work with seem to think that it is our leaders pushing this stuff, but it is the people who elected the leaders. A good king would be able to quell this nonsense by refusing to make the law. - Every great empire falls. If our people (and the leaders) read more history, the USA might have had a chance. I don't think it does--and I pride myself on my long-term outlook. There's alot of wrong in our government but the only way to change the constitution now would be a convention, and I do not see 3/4 of the states agreeing to get together for a congenial rewrite. Democracies just can't work at problems when they're the size of ours. - Sorry if I seem pessimistic. I do my best to influence my friends on my views here. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't drown him.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"