Illusion of Control
Im in such a weird mood tonight. First of all, im completely wore out from working 12 hour days. I was seriously falling asleep at like 10 every night. Speaking of which, i have to get up in 3 hours to drive all the way to Dayton for a one hour meeting...fun. Ummmmmm....so ya, Student Painters is actually going really well, i have 4 kids hired
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"I think people are given second chances, and given the same kind of situation again, they do make different decisions. "
If they are given a second chance, that first chance has affected their schemas and decision making processes. it is not the same kind of situation because they or you are a different person. There is no real way to prove or disprove jake's theory until we're dead. we will all be burning in someone other religion's hell saying "damnit, we really DID have a soul... shouldn't have skipped church to stay up late at Brian’s and egg houses in 8th grade." In other words, I don't think this issue will ever be resolved, just debated endlessly. That doesn't mean it isn't fun to debate it endlessly. Next.
"Do u understand my point??? STOP THINKING! GO WITH IT"
"That was way to much for me......but just live life! Don't try to make sense of things. Nothing in actuality ever makes sense. Trying to make sense of things will just stress u out and u'll never learn to just have fun. Just go with the flow on things and don't analyze everything."
No. This is fun. Maybe it's because I'm an engineer, but how does analyzing this take away from having fun or living life? I analyze everything and like it. In fact, I take classes on it and they pay me money to do it. I realize this may never be resolved and there may not be an answer but sometimes we can learn a little more about ourselves if we try. Besides, haven’t you been paying attention? We have no choice but to analyze it, the decision was already made for us.
Now my comments on the topic at hand. I agree with alot of what jake is saying. Your personality is made up entirely of genetics and environment. Decisions are based on biological factors and learned environmental factors, unless there is a God that gives you a soul, free will, etc. Even if there is, it is easy to talk about our decisions in terms of biological and environmental factors, they are much easier to observe than God. It seams pointless to start assuming there is a God and try to come to a conclusion because if God is omnipotent and all powerful he can do anything at any time and logic is useless. Anything can be explained with "God did it." So lets start without God and see where it gets us, which is basically what everyone has been doing thus far; ignoring any interference from some higher mystical power.
With God out of the way, it seems to me like everyone is trying to figure out of there is some semblance of self, soul, or free will under our built in chemical reactions and schemas that have been built up by our biology and environment. Here’s my opinion. Without God; no. There is nothing. Without starting a religious debate, when you strip away biology and environment, there is nothing. But then, if everyone is worried about what is left, about our free will, and about still having a sense of self, what do you define as self? What do you define as free will? What are we besides a bunch of biology and our past experiences? I don’t see how else you can define yourself. In other words, our biology and our schemas and our experiences ARE ourselves.
“What if the biologically schemas have been making the decisions for you all along? … the idea of free-will is just a schema that you created so that you have the illusion of control and can preserve your ideal self image?”
They have. Biological schemas ARE “you” and following these schemas IS free will. Going against them is the opposite of free will because someone else must be making the choice for you.
Maybe this is just a way to manipulate the way we define certain terms in order to reconcile a confusing subject, but I can’t see what else “I” am besides the lessons I’ve learned and the experiences I have. So basically I haven’t resolved anything but redefined the terms we (or at least I) didn’t understand. I guess I’m just arguing just to argue, to get a different viewpoint out there. What do you think?
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I never said that anything i was saying was right/true, just what i was thinking of at the moment. The point is just to spark peoples minds into thinking about things besides what they are giong to eat for lunch. w0rd
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