Is pride illogical?
 

Are you truly responsible for any of your achievements?

Purposely keeping this short just to see what direction you guys decide to take this

Yes, I think so. I think this can be broken down to free will, i.e.: what made you want to achieve the things that you have? People make decisions for themselves - we are not puppets solely controlled by any higher beings.

Pride is not illogical either. Some things take a lot of time, effort, and money to achieve (like a university degree or something), and there's no shame in being proud of accomplishing something.

Before I comment on anything else, I'll just say that I do not believe in free will, and that the belief comes not from a higher power controlling us like puppets, but the combination of nature and nurture that shapes us and influences us into doing what we do.

When you boil it down to what a 'choice' is, it's neuron activity sending a pulse to your body to execute an action. We have far less control over that than we think we do imo.

**** you.

Don't blame me, free will doesn't exist.

I didn't mean that.

My point is, whether free will exists or not is irrelevant. We have to assume it exists to have any form of meaningful reaction to each other as people. You're also separating our "choice" from our neurons "choice" I would argue they are one and the same. But it is a bit of a moral dilemma. A recent study showed that an mri can accurately "predict" what choice you're going to make (left or right) up to 6 seconds before you're even aware you've made one.

As for pride, it is an emotion. So you have to ask what extent an emotion can be logical.

The thing is, logic can only exist given axioms. Axioms are arbitrary assumptions/declarations. Such as 1+1=2. That is an axiom, logically we can then deduce that 1 is half of two, two twos make four ones and so forth.

So what are emotions axioms in order to determine the logic? it's up to the individual to decide, which throws up a few more problems if they have no free will to do it with in the first place.

Why? Prison and the like have never been about blame and punishment, it's about keeping people who make society a less pleasant place off the streets for the betterment of humanity as a whole. That's all morality is. stealing is only wrong because it makes society a less functional place, so it has been indoctrinated in us not to do so. Generally accepted morality is determined by how it affects society at large, right?

I would argue that our neurons are not a choice, but a reaction. Choice is the feeling of empowerment that we chose (yeah I used the word in the definition, DEAL WITH IT) something independent of any previously existing factor imo.

Yes, I believe that we are responsible for our own achievements. It's sort of obvious, otherwise they wouldn't be our achievements.

Never been about blame and punishment? Let's leave that for another time.

I was thinking more along the lines of normal human interaction. If no-one has true choice over their actions why appreciate anything anyone ever does or feels for you? Do you coldly think "my parent didn't choose to hug me, they have been conditioned to, I will be nice to them in order to maintain the social contract". No, while we may appreciate it on some level no-one actually processes human interaction like that on a personal level apart from sociopaths, and they can only survive on the goodwill and trust of others.

You can step back and evaluate it in the way economists, psychologists and the like do (purely as a social contract etc), but that isn't how people consider their own interactions in the moment (I don't think).

As for choice, I agree, you cannot choose anything without previous existing factors. First and foremost because previous factors are a always a given.

However if you do want to completely remove free will from the equation.....

You're saying people are input, output machines. I don't necessarily disagree. But given the same input in each machine, you should judge each on the (entire) output/effect it gives. Not because it's the machines "fault" or "choice", but because it's what that machine "is".

Illogical or not, it's awfully fun & I'm not going to let failures get in the way of my ability to enjoy my life.

Pride is not illogical however if you misuse your pride and you spend time wanting to hurt others, then you will be miserable. I mean the problem is that some people use their pride to demean others. This is going on all over the world especially in the Western places. This is why Canada, USA, France, UK, and other Western entities are falling apart. I mean USA has a 16 trillion debt and they are going to pay big time and other western countries are going to be worse.

Pride has been miused by many fools and that is why some people think having pride is evil. It is not. I am proud of the fact that I am a Congolese American and although I know mostly English, now I am being better at speaking French, Lingala, and Swahili. But I don't use my pride to say other Africans born in USA soil are stupider because they are not Congolese descendent.

So pride is not illogical but if you use to hurt others, you are nothing but a sniteful fool.

Okay, I get that. Do you think that everybody is cut out to follow a certain path in their life, personally and professionally? For instance, somebody with a good career and a good salary is in that position because it was "meant to be"? (This is how I think about nature vs nurture in the context that you put it in). Or are they there because they've accomplished a series of goals along the way because it is a position/status in life that they actually wanted to reach?

So I don't have control over my thoughts or actions? I'm just trying to understand what you're saying here.

Canada's falling apart? Since when?

Please in Canada (well maybe not the Toronto), there is a government is too fighting over so many little issues especially in the region below Minnesota. In USA, you have Republican jackasses and Democrats croonies who are fighting whether Rich need to pay their fair share. Canada is no better than US except in Canada there is less police state and less violence. But all Western places are losing credibility.

I'm totally confused, which issues are these? I guess I am uninformed.

I too am uninformed about the region of Canada below Minnesota.

Maybe he means the border of Canada along the Great Lakes :D

I understand what you are saying about nature vs nurture and whether or not we have any control over our choices...but then we can start breaking this down into a semantic argument about what free will actually means. To me, free will is simply making your own decisions which may or may not be informed by past experience and future expectation. Hormones and intelligence do play a part in this, but that makes it no less "your decision".

So, choices are firing neurons eventually leading to an action. However, what informs those particular neurons and eventual action are previous choices and conditionings. Let's pretend your brain is a blank slate...you are officially making your first decision ever. What is there to inform it? What choice will your brain make? My point here is just to point out that you can break down every human action to brain chemistry and composition, but that chemistry and composition is dynamic and you may make one decision today but another tomorrow. A computer may be able to predict an action that is inevitably about to occur, but it wouldn't be able to predict what you will do about it tomorrow. Similarly, we can make decisions and actions contrary to our character. To put it simply, your brain can tell you to do one thing and your heart could tell you to do another. Ultimately, the decision is up to you. Free will.

That then directly ties into pride. Let's say you make a hard decision that turns out to be the right one. You might be proud to have made that decision, which will then enforce taking decisive action in the future. In that way, it's completely logical. Some dude invented the wheel, was probably really proud of it, and then felt inspired to make more useful ****. Looking at it objectively like this, it sure makes sense. The illogical part comes in when we apply other emotions to it. Especially embarrassment. Let's say we make a decision we are initially proud of, it backfires, and we are embarrassed about it. Pride is such an enforcing aspect of our minds that our brains seriously can't let it go and inevitably cause ourselves more embarrassment until we can admit we were wrong. That is illogical and a good example of how young we are evolutionarily.

What do you need to know about it? :dj:

I don't know why I said that cause it's not even close to true lol. It's certainy headed in that direction though.

Emotions have proven an effect survival too for many species and humans are no different. Our emotions just happen to be more complex than all other species.


Well by same input I assume you're meaning same set of DNA and same exact environment? (Which is obviously physically impossible for a multitude of reasons, but I know you're presenting a hypothetical). In those ideal circumstances, the output would be identical I imagine.

I honestly think those two ways of viewing how something transpires are both equally valid and can coexist without free will existing. As far as "meant to be", you're referring to destiny? I guess that's how I see it, so for example if science and technology had improved so vastly in the far future that we were able to monitor all brain wave activity and DNA, we could predict how someone's life would transpire to a T, from beginning to end. As far as that ever happening, probably pretty unlikely though I wouldn't put it out of the realm of computer science to develop a program that could map it.

Depends on how you define control I guess.

Your heart can't tell you to do anything. Heart in the sense you used it is just a metaphorical meaning for emotions like love and compassion, which come from the brain. As for being proud of making a hard decision, like I said your decisions are just your brains reaction to a lifetime of environmental experience coupled with your unique DNA.

I can give you a for instance, give me a really popular form of food that you dislike. Or a respected band. Or anything like that.

Yes, I was using heart in the metaphorical sense. My point is there can be two conflicting thoughts in your head, and everyone has the potential to make a counter-intuitive decision. Which is exactly what free will is. It doesn't matter how much you boil it down to brain chemistry because even though you can...it doesn't change that in the way most people define it, we still have free will. The way you describe it, it sounds more concrete. Like you will never be able to escape your brain. While that may be true, consider what I said about the brain being dynamic. Everyone has the potential to CHANGE their brains, which is itself also a part of free will.

But to play along...I hate grits. And I'm from the south, which I guess is weird.

Ok, can you pinpoint for me the time in your lifewhere you realized you disliked the taste of that food and do you think you chose to dislike the taste of it? Could you choose at any given moment to like that food if you wanted to?

I would apply that same logic to anything you like or dislike, and I know that isn't exactly definitive proof of lack of free will but at the very least it's a basic illustration of what I'm getting at. Most real life scenarios involve a lot more variables that make it hard to pinpoint why we do what we do.

While it's a clever way to make a point, there have been plenty of foods I used to dislike and now like. Mashed potatoes, for one. I used to hate the texture, now I can't get enough of them. I made a conscious decision to try again and they grew on me. Free will in action.

I think you are confusing conscious action with subconscious persuasion. While it may seem you don't have a choice in how your subconscious mind is influencing you, you actually do. That is the part of your brain that will suppress a horrible memory, and while you didn't consciously decide to do that, it was still YOU that made the decision. Your brain is you, after all. We know far too little to make any philosophical claims about all that, though.

That is not the same thing, tastes evolve just like everything else. Exposure to other food can prompt interest in older, disliked foods and increase one's palate. Recognition that one's palate is expanding is a common part of growing up, leading to more experimentation. I went through the exact same thing. No different from being able to appreciate a deeper film as you mature.

In no way does that show you chose to enjoy a food, the appeal of it's taste is simply beyond your control.

Another hypothetical to illustrate it: if you're invited to a dinner at a guests house and they are serving grits, are you telling me you can choose to appreciate or dislike it on a dime? Because all I got from your post was that their was environmental influenced that prompted your conversion.

I see what you are saying, but this is still a huge leap going from "you can't control what foods you like" to "there is no free will". Liking or not liking something I suppose is out of our control...like not liking a sun burn. I don't know many people who enjoy those. Why do we not enjoy them? Because they cause us discomfort. Causing comfort or discomfort...liking or not liking...sure, I can't say we can do much about that. We can still control what we do about it, though. Just as most people will avoid the sun or use sunblock, there are still some idiots that will march right out there and take a nap at noon under the sun.

Yeah, I know. I recognize that it was a pretty basic explanation and most human behavior is not always so explainable and lots of it is most definitely not logical to us :laughing:

My point still stands though, and an illogical action isn't proof of free will, it just shows that some people have some gaping holes in logic in their brain imo

I think one of the main issues here is you are trying to define free will as something very specific, when in actuality I think most people see it as something more general...as in, did I really make this choice? If there is free will, then yes...regardless of how my brain may have influenced it. If no, then there is some external force guiding my actions. Personally, I feel the latter is fairly unlikely. When viewed that way...any choice - whether it's because I like or dislike something and whether it's because of some experience I had in the past - is still the end result of ME making that choice. The argument you are making is whether or not free will is some tangible attribute humans must have, external from our actions or experiences. If that's the case, then I actually agree with you. But that is not what free will is.

But you don't make choices, you have the illusion of making choices. It's not that there's an external guiding hand playing you like a puppet, it's that everything you do has been dictated by what nature has given you.

When you go out to see a film on a Saturday night, you may think you chose to do so over staying home and studying, but in reality it wasn't a choice and at that specific moment in time you only ever were destined to make that action given all the considerations.

I may get laughed at for saying this, but I think we choose what we do as much as, say, plants choose to bloom. The only difference being our actions are far more complex and more informed. Our ability to pick up knowledge as we go far surpasses any other creature, but we still abide by the same laws of nature that they do. Our actions are simply responses to given stimuli in the environment imo.

Here's a chart on the matter. I fall pretty clearly under the category of Hard Determinism

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-f1NL_05sof...mXFreeWill.jpg

Sounds pretty sexy.

if you show me yours, i'll show you mine

If you think nature and nurture influenced me to spend 13 hours in a 100+ degree kitchen making the best food I can every day then you're out of your mind. What part exactly of my childhood influenced my decision to clean, cut, pickle, and jar 70 lbs of ramps in one day? Or is it our genes that led us to break down 6 whole pigs and cook them in such a way that wins local and national acclaim? Being proud of what you do is as "illogical" as feeling upset when a family member dies or happy when you see your loved one. If all emotion is just synaptic reaction then what exactly makes them illogical? Your body thinks they're pretty important to do all by itself, doesn't that make them pretty valuable?

I'm not passing any judgement here, you were the one who argued that everyone was of equal intelligence with me in the shoutbox right?

Not sure I'm gonna convert someone with such a polarizing belief from my own :laughing:

Tuna, I find your beliefs pretty interesting. I'll concede to a couple things... First, that it is theoretically possible to predict absolutely anything with an in depth enough model (this is what physics is trying to prove with their universal equation). Second, I agree our decisions are influenced by our past experiences. However, that's where we stop agreeing. While we may be able to PREDICT what someone will do if we know enough about them, we still cannot ultimately be 100% certain. I think the key here is to think about external interactions vs internal thought processes. They are 2 very distinct sets of probabilities that can be used to determine the CHANCE that something will happen. As easy as it is to use hindsight and piece things together as a caused b caused c and that's why x happened, you can't assume that you could have known x would happen because a, b, and c are all probabilistic models themselves. Think about this... You could potentially know every element that could influence a coin toss. Even so, all of those elements combine to form something that is still a prediction. No one will ever be able to say how a coin toss will end up with 100% certainty. We are only certain after the fact. This element of uncertainty is where free will lies. It's the ability for our brains to process patterns and probabilities and still make a potentially irrational decision. The human element.

If you are interested, look into some Plato. His theory about the limited vs. the unlimited might be very interesting to you. He talks about how the world is made from 3 basic elements: unity, the limited, and the unlimited. There must be unity and the world is in a constant struggle to maintain it. The struggle occurs because the limited is in a constant battle with the unlimited. The limited represents pure rationality, which is the element you are focusing on. If the world was nothing but the limited, there would be no potential for positive change. The world would simply keep recreating itself in the same way. The unlimited is creativity and the will to strive for more and go beyond our current boundaries. This is the element I am talking about. The ability for life to create unexpected change is the basis of free will. You are bound by your "unique DNA" as you put it. A mutation might occur to make your offspring more fit in the environment. This would advance our species. If we lived in a purely probabilistic universe as you think, an equilibrium of life and death within every environment would be reached, and no overall change would occur. This is clearly never the case... Humans rose above that and are constantly striving to overcome our environment, not just coexist with it.

We do live in a causal universe, but causality is finite. It must begin and end with a choice.

I agree. But my point wasn't trying to separate us from animals.

It was that while we can appreciate that (maybe) we have no free will. We emotively treat it as their choice to hug us, otherwise why would we have an emotional response?

It's almost like suspended disbelief (which is what what makes us cry/fear when we are being told a story we know is fictional). In this sense, free will (of the characters) definitely doesn't exist, but we can respond at a veryt fundamental level (emotively) that it is.

At the end of the day, deciding we have free will or not changes nothing. Either we have free will and are all responsible for our actions, or none of us have it, so can't be "held responsible" for how we react to others actions. If a criminal's nature&nurture caused him to commit a crime then a judges nature&nurture will determine the sentence he gives and you can't "blame" either.

I agree but that wasn't what I was going for.

In that analogy
Machine = individual's brain at that point in time, determined by genetics and all experiences up to that point in time.
Input = The particular situation each person is assessing.
Output = Their choice/reaction

If you take free will out of the equation, then the different outputs of each machine given the same input show simply what they are, judge them on that.

Maybe it's a weak anology. Whatever, I'm off for dinner. :)

I'm going off of like 1 1/2 hours of sleep today so I may get back to these posts sometime tomorrow

I will ask this of duga though (I think you already believe free will is an illusion, Face, correct me if I'm wrong). Do you think other animals besides humans have free will?

I feel anything with self awareness has free will. Animals have the potential for free will without the capacity to use it. They are instinctual, which is purely causal. That opens up a whole other aspect to what i was talking about, so I'll wait till you digest what I said in the last post before I get into it.

Do I think it's an illusion? It depends on what you mean by free will. If the requirement of free will is that it needs to be independent of your experiences and genetics, well, then it doesn't exist in that sense.

But I still think we can call what we do a "choice" because our choice is what it is. Given two options, then whatever constitutes as ME is what gave an output rejecting one option over another. So nothing else could be responsible for it apart from the entirety of what is........ ME, including genetics, experiences and whatever else that consists of.

So, I think going by that, an animal would need to be able to actually consider (or be aware of) alternative options on some level to be said to have any degree of free will similar to ours, however illusionary it may or may not be.

This being aware of other options opens the avenue to taking actually taking them, which leads to there being a variety in observed responses in a population. This variety in responses is what I think can be said to be the freewill (illusion or actual).

So, in order for an animal to be able to consider options, it cannot be hard-wired, it needs to be able to learn from it's experiences and have it's psychology shaped by it.

Could you expand on this? By probabalistic do you mean that given all factors we could predict the future with 100% certainty? Because if that's the case I don't understand why that would mean any equilibriums would have to be reached.

Think about it...you start a chemical reaction, it proceeds to equilibrium, using up catalysts and creating products until no more reaction occurs. There is still the potential for more reactions to occur, but without adding anymore elements, it will remain at equilibrium. This is the limited universe I was talking about. With a finite number of elements, any closed system will eventually reach equilibrium. Throw those same elements in again and again and what happens? The same thing...the environment recreates itself over and over. It's predictable.

What if you consider big bang all the way though to the universe's equilibrium/end as the one reaction?

Ie. catalyst + reactants -> products
The amount of reactants vs products is constantly changing, the reaction is irreversible and the equilibrium is at the end of the reaction. Isn't that what IS happening (assuming no big crunch), the universe is constantly changing, not self sustaining, while proceeding to AN (just the one) equilibrium of sorts (the end of the universe/reaction).