Vegan Forum

Um, pretty sure that's energy.

He was getting his left hand beaten with a ruler on a daily basis

That's quite a horror story I've heard some similar stories, and in recent years there have been some legal cases, where Catholic clergy have been accused of child abuse There's a few films around... The Magdalene Sisters.

Fortunately, the Catholic church was trying to reinvent itself when I was at the school. We had proper teachers, whereas Nuns had taught at the school up until a few years before! They were a bit like the hippy teacher on Beavis & Butthead... And they had started letting a limited number of non-Catholics into the school. Most of the catholic community were very friendly too. The school was in a town where outsiders were not welcome - some of the local children were not allowed to talk to me becasue their parents branded me a "traveller" But the Catholic community were Irish, Italian and Polish families, so they were very kind to me. But still rather sexist The boys were allowed to play outside while we hand-stitched these f***ing kneeling cushions I managed to hit the Headmaster in the nuts with a cricket ball before I left

There are some fascinating Vatican conspiracy theories around. I've heard that the Pope still has a scary amount of power in some countries...

If you're talking about all matter being made up of atoms. Then certainly it is energy.



But I guess for all practical application, it is energy that cannot be created or destroyed. The first law...

I'm glad that you see things my way.

hah!

I actually couldn't link to the other page, but oh well... I want to say my thing on free will.


Wondering on the existence of free will, is something that sometimes induces the more philosophically inclined individual to attempt doing something really dumb just to see if they can get away with it. Almost, say... as an excuse for rebellion? From everything, including what's been done before.


Not to say that this is the whole point of the short story, but Graham Greene's andquot;The Destructorsandquot; deals somewhat with free will, and how we can choose to let the systems that we create fall apart. Its almost easier. Entropy (which I think exists in states of mind, as well as in the mere physical,/biological world.) would have a tendency to tear apart all that is created by human beings. In fact... Entropy would have a tendency to delete life, cancelling the universe with its equivalent amount of antimatter (we're not talking star-trek, here).


But that's not the case... (unless i don't exist )


So that rules out the (known) laws of the universe being the source of free will because the obvious intent of its will would create a lack of existence for everything. This leaves the mind of the self or the influence of a diety as an influence for one's decisions. (I apologize if my definitions or usage of terms are inadequate, but oh well...)


Sanduleak, I think, already mentioned the idea that people could potentially be acting moving only as the result of chemical synapses. I've thought this through to a great extent


Here's a comparison to the human mind:


Written language is perhaps considered to be one of the greatest inventions (not necessarily discoveries) of mankind. What really takes place with Written language... is the transfer of one idea from the mind of one person to another while putting a suspension on time. E=mc^2 (which I believe is one of the laws of physics, not thermodynamics, but maybe both...) is the (simplified version of the) mathematical equation for the conservation of energy.


So... matter can't be created nor destroyed, but can only be converted from one form to another.


So what happens when you write down the fruits of your thoughts and experiences in a journal which is lost for a thousand years, then someone else reads it and learns from your writing? Information may not be exactly the same as energy, but it requires energy to store information in any form. From my limited collegiate studies of Physics, every real machine or system (as in, not a theorization of ideal conditions) has a great percentage of lost energy.


Similarly... when one person reads something written by another person, they aren't really reading the same thing. They are applying their personal experiences and their backgrounds to this new thing... which has essentially been created in there minds, induced by the written material. Some of the information is lost.


Now, back to the chemical control of your head:


Everything you know (or might care to remember...) is stored in your brain. You experienced it from the translation of chemical to electrical transmissions in your nervous system, originating from your sensing extremities. Your senses allow you to come into contact with the outside world, transferring information from places, things, and people.


So information has been transferred from person to person to person, throughout generations and for all of human existence... And data has been gathered from the world... info about plants and animals and perhaps the weather, eh? Now your various spins have been put on your observations, stemming from the data recieved from other people. Through the transfer, however, some of the data from other people has obviously been lost.


Without original thought... and the loss of information, we would necessitate towards entropy. We would be getting stupider, and not smarter. But, civilization has been building up and the human race as a whole, is getting smarter (in theory... but we may have to exclude the president and a few others...)


If we are cognitive beings, part of this must be sentient and cognitive choice. Our civilization would not be possible without it.


We have to have free will.


Besides... you won't get anywhere if you blame someone else for all your problems. You have to do something.


(Donnie Darko anyone? almost a comforting thought if we're thinking about Armageddon...)

andgt;Sanduleak, I think, already mentioned the idea that andgt;people could potentially be acting moving only as the andgt;result of chemical synapses. andnbsp;I've thought this through andgt;to a great extent.

I'm not too sure if I said that... but I did not intend on sounding like I don't believe in Free Will... if that's how you took it. Or, I'm currently apologizing for the misinterpretation of somebody else's post. *shrugs*

However, I really enjoyed this post. I'm going to share this with some friends of mine... I think they'll like it.

Is this your own independent thought or are you restating an argument made by somebody previously?

independant, I like to think... but I may just be interpolating a different shade of blue,... if you know what I mean (Hume)

*nods*

BtheDragonman you are talking about anarchy, haveing a freewill is far different from anarchy, there is no need to sterio-type something you dont understand, obviously the programming of todays sociaty has taken a toll on you mind, which is sad because i feel that if one loses any control of their own thoughts or dreams they have lost all possibility of being able achieve true innerpeace, and or greatness.

sorry i just wanted to clearafie that i ment no negativity bye what i said in the previous posting, i was mearly sharing my feelings

hmmm... anarchy? *which bit did you mean? *Where I said that everything has a tendency to move towards chaos but the addition of new ideas defy this entropy: creating new things all the time. *Or the part that free will is necessary for new ideas?

I would love to hear why you think what you think. *Its much less fun for me if you merely tell me i'm wrong just because of your feelings. *;)

We have free will in regards to the means but not in regard to the end. It seems that all organisms desire 'happiness' or contentment. That is why I go to work, bathe, eat, etc... even philosophize... because afterwards I will be a little 'happier.' It is the unviersal goal.


The freedom to reach that goal makes us kind of a universal adapter. We are able to learn culture, language, etc and try to find a way, within the given paradigm, to reach 'happiness.'


Therefore, I see that we have FREE WILL to do whatever it takes to reach an INNATE goal.


Thanks for reading.

Now time for me to rant...


Free will exists, because we have the ability to choose whatever we wish to do. This ability is limited merely by our imagination, however, there is another factor.


This factor is the principle of self. People are predictable. Everyone has a certain tendency towards certain reactions in certain situations, so technically, if one were to know everyone's tendencies, the entire future would be predictable. However, this predictability does not discount free will, but merely points out that people prefer to act certain ways. Under certain circumstances, people can be made to act 'contrary to their nature', but even that is a function of reaction.


Hypnosis makes things fun - you can order people to do things, but it has a catch. You can't make someone do something they wouldn't consider doing normally. So you couldn't make me run naked through a crowd, but you could make me crawl on the carpet. However, the mind rationalises these actions in their own individual way - an extension of the free will principle.

Oh the youthful thinking. You shouldn't be asking whether free will exists or whether it doesnt but under what conditions does it exist?

Free will exists if there is a choice. Big mac or cheeseburger? Long johns or leopard underwear? Expensive car or economic car? Marriage or living together?

Whenever starts rambling on about free will, i picture a person in front of a drive through window trying to make a decision on what to eat. There is consumer free will, that is to say you are not forced to buy something. Philosophical free will? Sometimes we do. Obviously our decision making process isn't sometimes as easy as 'to go to school or not to go to school?'. Depending on the psychological state of the person in question and the amount of external influences on the person, then you can say whether or not there really is a choice there. True, Sartre showed that we have innate responsibility for our actions and this counted as free will, but is it always this direct? If an earthquake hit new york today and killed my family and dog, was it ultimately my fault because i had the choice of living there or in chicago? Ofcourse not that is ridiculous to think. The decision to live in new york was not one that you openly weighed against natural disasters. True earthquakes can hit at any time on fault lines, but does this mean that you 'chose' to live there and should take full responsibility for your actions as you are as much responsible for the death of your family and dog as the earthquake?

Philosophers have oversimplified the question of free will. Some say we are determined and therefore our actions are already preset. How silly is that? That assumes that a being somewhere already knows all the actions that will ever occur. This is contradictory in itself. If all things that will happen have happened, then there is a record of these things somewhere. Otherwise there would be no point in determenism. So this record already says what will happen in the future, but does it record itself as having recorded itself, as having recorded itself, as having recorded itself...etc.? It goes in circles and therefore their logic is faulty.

Lets reconsider this question of free will. Dont romanticize the problem and dont bring in cliches. Be analytic and be skeptic, relative, objective, and subjective in your considerations.

Lets reconsider this question of free will

I would love to... But I spent the weekend reading (yet another) article that mapped out my entire life in terms of my hormone secretions. It was utterly depressing.

How do you know if something is your free will, or just some irrational instinct that you'll regret later?

That's true, sometimes our options are either stupid or biased.