Wait are you now saying that hate is evil?

If you are faced with two options and option A is morally right (deemed so by whatever moral theory you subscribe to) and option B is morally wrong, why would you choose option A? — Seeking Wisdom

Morally wrong according to whom? IOW it might be that I do something not because it is moral (to others, say) but because I feel empathy for someone suffering, for example.

Then if I live in a group or culture where certain actions are considered moral and I don't really, deep down want to do them, motivations could include

guilt
shame
egotism - wanting to be seen a certain way.
fear
strategic motives
self-protection
conflicr avoidance
sneakiness
secret goals


I might, of course, just think it is good. to do that.

One reaction I have this time, is that on some level it seems to me it is not taking responsibility for being a part of this universe. Yes, it is bewildering and strange, but I do not simply find myself in it, I am a part of it. I am like it. I don't just experience the mystery, I am the mystery.

But I disagree that it means we love one child more than another. That we connect more with one child does not mean that we have less love for the others. — Possibility

I am not saying it must be the case. I think it is often the case.

The way I see it, our feelings of love (value, preference, desire) certainly influence but do not determine our capacity to act with love. — Possibility

Sure, I almost think romantic love can be stronger based on difference.

But still I think a lot of parents love one of their children more than others and often there are, to varying degrees, black sheep children in families. I know this through confidences and confessions from many parents, nearly all of whom felt quite guilty about it. This does not mean it is true in your case. I assume there is quite a lot of unreported cases of this, and by unreported I mean: the parent tells no one. It's taboo. Given how many have told me I suspect it is widespread. I think also it is often hard for the person to admit even to themselves. There have been cognitive studies that strongly indicate that many peope who dislike racism, are antiracist and would even speak out about racism, nevertheless are more likely to make negative judgments about other races. IOW people can not know their own feelings, when those feelings are ego-dystonic. Not loving one's children the same is extremely ego-dystonic.Again, this does not mean you love yours to different degrees.

The way I see it, our feelings of love (value, preference, desire) certainly influence but do not determine our capacity to act with love. — Possibility

I got a little lost in this part. One can act lovingly but feel something else, or feel not so much love, though acting the same with another person...sure. And some nice people can be quite hateful inside - not that this is the same, just showing that acting and feeling can be quite separate, in degree and even in quality.

In any case, I certainly wouldn't tell you or someone else that you necessarily love one child more than another. I don't believe it is universal. But I don't think it is pathological either. In fact I think it is quite common.

I don’t deny that, at any point in time or set of circumstances, we would prefer one child over another. What I’m arguing is that while this appears to be an indication of where love is at work at any point in time, it is by no means an indication of a lesser quantity of love being available. — Possibility

Not qutie sure what that means, but it's likely my fault for joining an ongoing discussion. I would add that often in parenting it is not just at a particular time, but even for a whole lifetime of the relationship. This does not meanthe parent does not love his or her other children. But some simply love one more than the others, long term. This isn't evil, it's often just down to who can connect and understand each other given some tempermental resonance.

But getting back to the original topic, perhaps you and I can at least agree that there is no hate necessary in these examples - that saving one child instead of another does not require one to hate the child we don’t save. — Possibility

Oh, sure. If that was what you were arguing against, I am on your side. Did someone really say that if you save one child, when you can only save one child it means you love one and hate the other? Jeez.

but I’m not going to rule out the possibility of circumstances at the time that might lead me to go the other way, even if I can’t describe them in detail right now. — Possibility

It seems likely that with most parents, those factors would have to do with things like physical obstacles, not with valuing the life of someone else's child over our own.

But in a similar hypothetical fire situation if both the children were YOURS, would your decision to choose one child over the other be ‘proof’ that you LOVE one of your two children less? — Possibility

Probably it would. Unless, say, physical differences were involved. IOW your gut reactions was saving JImmy has a lower chance of succeeding and/of killing you both so you saved Joe. Or you had to choose to save one childr first and grabbed the nearest one. But if you chose to save one and you, as you word it, chose to save one child over the other, than either you loved on of them more or you felt guilty about that and went against your own desires. And a lot of parents feel guilty for preferring one child over others.

Though my goodness, we've gotten into a morbid corner of love, somehow.

I understand that we look at these actions as ‘proof’ of love, but to me they simply demonstrate our feelings of preference, desire or value attributed to events or objects in time. They prove where love is at work in that moment, but not where love ISN’T. — Possibility

Real life events are a mess. It would often be very hard to work out, in a fire for example, all the factors. But I think parents can feel each other's preferences and if the child one parent was closer too was chosen and it seemed like all factors were equal, it would be very hard on all three survivors, because it would remind all three that we often do love one child more than the other (s) and in this case it probably led to that child not surviving. An honest spouse - to the one in that horrible situation - would realize they might have done the same thing. If you have to choose one, one has to be chosen. But it might break the relationship anyway, especially if the other parent would have made a different choice.

The other parent would likely find it nearly impossible to accept choosing someone else's child over their own. Unless they could be shown there was no way to save their child. Unless they came to believe that was the case. I don't think any marital relationship would survive one parent choosing to save someone else's child. Relationships often have trouble surviving the death of a child by disease or accident. If the other parent could have saved the child but decided not to, I think very few make it past that juncture.

And it seems to me mentioning logic as you did....

There are too many instances of actions that defy logic, — Possibility

It's not logic that makes one choose one's own child first. It's outside of logic, it is feeling. And even the other parents, if they knew you had to choose one child, would understand you chose your own, because they know what they would have done. They might not want to be friends, because the feelings go so deep, but they would understand the choice.

I'd say it is part of our processes and who we are. A counterpart sounds like something that is not us.

Well where do you expect to go with hate? Otherwise it's an unreasonable burden on your shoulders you have to deal with. What is the point of hate? — Fruitless

It's a bit like asking 'whats the point of reflexes?' or 'what's the point with immune system imflammation around a wound`?

The organism is reacting to outside stimuli. And then in some cases it is helpful to be mobilized by powerful emotions. One need not necessarily act on them, but to be mobilized and sometimes expressive without violence, given that we are social mammals, is often necessary. And then of course sometimes we need to defend ourselves physically.

I appreciate this is true. But I did not claim this. I said, — god must be atheist

Right but I believe you said he doesn't believe, he knows, as if these were mutually exclusive.

Oh, now I've read the second part. I probably made leaps, pardon my jumpy mind. I often make leaps I think make sense, but people wonder how I got there. We seem to be on the same page, now at least.

An atheist is one who does not believe in god. A theist is one who believes in god.

God does not believe in god. He KNOWS he exists. Faith or belief is not necessary for his knowledge to know he exists. — god must be atheist

In philosophy, knowledge is considered a subset, generally, of beliefs. Rigorously arrived at beliefs. It would be ridiculous to say God knows he exists, but does not believe it. Justified true belief and all that.

I didn't say that theists own a certain word. Nor do I believe that.

Well, it's be off topic to discuss that, but since faith is a word bandied about only by some theists, I don't think that holds. God might be an afaithist, but God would presumably believe God exists, making him a theist.

It is mere partizansm. There is no proof god exists; there is no proof god does not exist. I BELIEVE GOD DOES NOT EXIST. — god must be atheist

What with your 'name' I figured.

Actually I think your main problem with your estimate is going to come from the other direction. That a non-believer, if you are one, thinks there's a fifty percent chance God exists, might well be viewed rather positively by many theists. But I think the other team is going to be all over that.

Well, women started as girls. So, pride in whatever they do: pride in things they create, sports, friendships, artistic work, good acts, clever acts, doing well in school....and so on. Then as adults anything from academic work to work work to family to any achievements, skills, character strengths, courage, whatever.

couple of thoughts right off: prideful and pride are not the same. the former tends to be excessive. The second thought is that it is central to and grounding for both men and women.

From there I think the concept is so subjective that what one person takes as pride could be anything from foolhardy to deluded to correct positive self-evaluation to stubborness to entitlement to 'not hating yourself' to a lack of shame and so on.

Why not let's work with this part of my response?

I think it can be useful to think of emotions in categories. I think it can also be useful not to box them in and notice nuances. Depends on the context. I suppose I take an instrumentalist view. What is the best way to think or speak about it in this or that context. And I would likely use different ways in different contexts. I do think that each experience is unique and if it is the specificity i want to focus on, then I might go into just such detail or at least let myself notice it. If I am angry at someone, I'd probably speak about it in less detail, just call it anger and say what it is about, since the nuances would often not be useful or would detract from the core message. — Coben

It was the most charitable interpretation. I'll end my hijacking here.

He's just cranky from another thread. We won't hijack more.

Yes, your version of a sense of humor makes Aspies of us all.

How would I be presenting a persona? — Fruitless

It's the internet- It's easy to present personas.

First you wrote this describing mentioning two emotions and wondering if there are any others....

With emotions, I mean we have happiness and sadness. They are two different emotions, is there another different emotion which we can experience? — Fruitless

Then you wrote:

Rather I feel new emotions swept over me every week. — Fruitless

And I started to wonder if you were just messing with people. You ask us if there are more, then you say you have new ones all the time. Had you really not experienced anger of fear, or did you think they were really sadness or happiness?

And then there was a new line of statements and questions leading to...

And if that holds true, we have infinite logic = infinite emotions??????? — Fruitless

...based on thinking being the same as logic.

Makes me wonder, again, if you are just presenting a persona here.

The last part about such specific nuances to a particular emotion....

'I think you need logic to feel emotion otherwise your existence is empty' I felt something similar to 2 wings slowly rising within my lungs and ending at the apex of my heart. Then another pulse which rippled through my entire ribcage. Like a faint tickle. — Fruitless

I think it can be useful to think of emotions in categories. I think it can also be useful not to box them in and notice nuances. Depends on the context. I suppose I take an instrumentalist view. What is the best way to think or speak about it in this or that context. And I would likely use different ways in different contexts. I do think that each experience is unique and if it is the specificity i want to focus on, then I might go into just such detail or at least let myself notice it. If I am angry at someone, I'd probably speak about it in less detail, just call it anger and say what it is about, since the nuances would often not be useful or would detract from the core message.

If I understand you correctly, that is how real change--referring to emotional/intellectual/spiritual or ethical--occurs for humans. — uncanni

Hm. I don't really want to generalize. I think people want different things. I want to be free and I want my various parts to be integrated and welcome. I want to accept my emotions and urges and integrate them and to be expressive. Not everyone wants this. Buddhism is not really that kind of path. I don't want to say mine is right and theirs is wrong. I just don't want what Buddhism is doing. Some do. Good for them, do it. I don't think everyone has the same goal for how to live, nor to I think all paths lead to the same place. I briefly met the Dalai Llama and heard him speak. Not really inspiring for me.

Many nod their heads affirmatively when I ask them if they know folks in their 60s who are still tantrum-throwing children. — uncanni

Or cold hearted bastards. Or not quite there anymore. Or childlke, but in a good way. Or....Or......

But sure, age is not guarantee of anything. I'm not much younger than you..

Thus, why would anyone in their right mind take the preachers' words for it all? — jorndoe

Well, most preachers suggest practices, especially since you list contains deities that are parts of religions that focus on experiences via practices. IOW it is a given that you must engage in practices and have experiences of dieties and altered states and develop a connection to the deity directly. And sure, some preachers don't emphasize this, and the West tend to focus on faith and beliefs (as ideas) but even in these 'churches' there are practices, ways to try to directly experience, development of relationships, etc.

Have you experienced infinite emotion?

Ok so, you where saying we can only experience a minimum of 4 emotions. — Fruitless

I am not quite sure what 'only' means in this sentence. I would say we experience a minimum of four emotions, since I cannot see taking any of those four out and experience them as distinct. Perhpas there are more, but not less.

Which made me think, emotions are caused by effects of thinking. — Fruitless

How did my suggesting this make you think emotions are the result of thinking?

So, aren't emotions a side effect of logic? — Fruitless

We think about what someone has said which creates anger. The same for happiness, sadness and fear.

I think even fairly simple experiences can make me feel an emotion. I see an animal in the woods. I cool shower on a hot day. A car does nto slow down when I am in a crosswalk.

IOW I don't need to think about these events, give them a meaning or mull over future results or think about what it says about me to feel even extremely strong emotional reactions.

I do think thinking has all sorts of effect on emotions. Though I wouldn't conflate logic with thinking. Thinking that is not logical can have all sorts of emotional effects. Logical thinking may have little effect. Logical thinking about fear may not reduce the fear at all.

Can you elaborate? And how did you connect this idea to my post? IOW i am not sure where this question comes from`? but interested in seeing what you mean.

And what did you think of adding anger and fear to your two emotion list?

With emotions, I mean we have happiness and sadness. They are two different emotions, is there another different emotion which we can experience? — Fruitless

There are a number of different emotion classification systems out there, each with a different number of emotions. I can't see having less than four. Happiness, sadness, fear and anger seem very distinct to me, even if you can be feeling more than one of them on some occasions. Others add disgust and contempt and even surprise to the list, and some lists get much more nuanced. Personally disgust and surprise seem not quite the same kind of thing to me. I couldn't be surprised for a long time, whereas I could be sad for hours and hours and nto consider it bizarre or pathological. But, in any, case, I think you have to add at least fear and anger.

When you asked me how do we know that every single person has the capacity to feel as much as the next, I'm referring to the biological processes of the brain. — Fruitless

But we know that brains have different capabilities, temperments, size of brain components,neural pathways, and seemingly, at least in my life, different levels of emotional expression, detachments, passions, desires, engagement. There is a range of intelligence and even types of intelligence, for example. I just wonder why there wouldn't be the same thing with emotions. Yes, nurture plays a role, but it even seems like genetics plays a role in intelligence also (not speaking about races, here) and other facets of who we are.

And referring to your last sentence, does that then mean the amount of intelligence that someone possesses determine their scope or range of emotions? — Fruitless

No. It was an answer to the question: can we feel more emotions? I am still not sure what 'more' means in that question, but it if you mean can we feel more of our emotions or feel our emotions with greater intensity, then yes, I think we can learn to not suppresse and avoid noticing our emotions.

Oh, yes. I didn't take that as straight seriousness. It's just that Buddhism is becoming THE western go to for some many or mindfulness and other watered down versions of B. If I say short cut, people often assume it is in relation to Buddhism and the discipline and the sitting and suppressing emotional expression and detachment. Just need to be clear that there are other approaches and B is not mine. Nor discipline. I'm more on the side of freeing it up, radically, though carefully over time.

Well, I don't like what Buddhism does to the self, though if it is what others want, may they find what they want. I am more into accepting and expressing emotions and letting the body move as it wants, slowly learning not to hate and suppresse the self. Almost the opposite of Buddhism and not really quite what pot does, though I think one can use pot to get perception underneath the habits. It can be very hard not to notice certain mental habits on pot.

I use Cannabis primarily as medicinal: it has relieved depression and anxiety in me like no SSRI was ever able to do. — uncanni

And I'm in no position to tell you that you shouldn't. I think in general, for most people, it functions as a short cut, and what is achieved by the drug, needs to be achieved by the person without the drug, to fully heal. But that's also in an ideal. We have jobs, and so much time, and limited or not relationships, nto enough time in nature, perhaps jobs that are not meaninful, stress.

But I trust medicinal plants much more the pharma's psychotropics.

I'm glad I smoked pot, those times that I did. It confirmed that there was a lot of things going on, in myself and out there, that I was no noticing. I think long term regular use dulls the self, robbing peter to pay paul or running the engines hard but wearing them out a bit or a lot. I think there are better ways to have more direct access. Not to earn it per se, but to be able to take those steps oneself, rather than simply being shifted there and then falling back with a gap in between. I think hallucinogens in general can drive make one notice things in a clear way, and that from there I'd rather make all the tiny steps to get there on my own. I also see regular users seem to have lost an edge. And the drug has become something more like beer than a hallucinogen. They no longer learn anything, they just like the attitude it forces them into. They've found a way to control their mood. I think in the end that's disrespect for the body and the emotions. Though anything humans do can be like this, certainly many legal substances, and very seemlingly just good activities like reading or talking to friends (in certain ways). But one is using force on the self when one uses a drug. I mean, even coca cola or tylenol. Anything that shifts stress hormones or has other endocrine effects.

Every single person on this earth has the capacity to feel as much as the next. — Fruitless

How do we know this? It doesn't fit my experience that this is the case.

Where you say 'more emotions' do you mean like types of emotions? Like seeing ultraviolet when before we could not and just could see up to violet? Or do you mean more strongly?

I think we can learn to suppress and experience our emotions more. And if there are particular emotions we have felt we should not feel, start allowing them to be felt and expressed.

"Free will obtains via the fact that the world is not strongly deterministic" is my philosophical view. It's not claiming to be based on some scientific view. — Terrapin Station

Oh, good you're argument is based not on scientific consensus, which you mention just after you assert this, but it's based on it being a fact. Or because if the world is not strongly deterministic, it has to be free will-istic. Despite neither deterministic processes nor stochastic processes justify free will.

You just happened to mention stochastic processes and science after you stated your 'view' now.

The reason I brought that up is because it's what the "no free will crowd" always relies on (that's not literally saying 100% of the time, etc.). — Terrapin Station

Me, I'm agnostic when it comes to free will, but over the years I have encountered the no free will crowd over and over and over saying that there are no non-deterministic processses that support free will. It's not like close the 100%, it's regular, certainly more than half the time, and this is because the free will crowd regularly brings up qm. And yes, I've seen stochastic processes mentioned before, though much more rarely. However it suffers the same problems that qm does. Often the determinists will talk about scale issues, but they are wrong about this, I think, because qm effects can change the movements of large organisms like birds. But the real problem is, yes, randomness.

But it is likely true that....

Free will obtains via the fact that the world is not strongly deterministic" is my philosophical view.

IOW that the first part of the sentence is your view.

So most of your earlier posts WERE NOT ARGUMENTS at all in relation to your own position. You were just adding on your take about how scientists think and how this is different from how determinists think scientists think and none of it supported your view. So we can all run off and look at determinists arguments and not notice that you have none for your position, which you earlier denied even having, which is a view about what you consider a fact.

People tend to bicker when you insult the people you disagree with - in the form of bemoaning their lack of your knowledge - and you think your position holds because there are problems with their position, in your view. You could both be wrong, for example, and it's hardly a sin to think you are defending your position, not merely sharing your views.

I could see saying that given that stochastic models work for very complicated systems there may be room left for free will. This would mean that the current scientific idea that there is a random element is incorrect, at least when stochastic models work well with what we might call agents. IOW scientists would be wrong in saying it is random then, because it actually has to do with free will. This means that the scientists' have been viewing the model incorrectly at the ontological level. Or they wouldn't use the word 'random'. They could create a much better placeholder term.

There's also a problem because the phrase 'stochastically determined' is a phrase used in science.

But hey, if you think free will is like Brownian motion, I think you are bending the concept of 'free will' to places most scientists, laypeople and, yes, forum members would need your definition up front for whatever unique take you have on the idea.

Of course really all this had nothing to do with your view. I think Isaac and I can acknowledge your view is your view. And also that you prefer people to be able to say whatever they want in society. And that, of course, you are not really arguing for anything, just saying why you don't want to change your view. And that's fine. I thought for a while you were supporting your views. This led to bickering.

But we haven't even gotten up into hate speech. And obviously according to you bickering cannot be immoral, so you might want to stop reacting to it in the way people do react when they think something is immoral. People might confuse you with having moral judgments about bickering. Of course you don't have those moral judgments, but word to the wise, you might come across that way.

There are easy ways to avoid bickering. At least with online people.

My position was "You can't use a belief that science has a Laplacean, strongly deterministic view of the world as a support for determinism." — Terrapin Station

Nope, that's a lie or a convenient lack of self-awareness. Your position - the one I responded to originally - was....

Free will obtains via the fact that the world is not strongly deterministic. The standard view in the sciences, by the way, is that the world is not strongly deterministic, where that's been the standard view for over 150 years now, but somehow the message isn't getting through. — Terrapin Station

And note how the above makes a claim about science's standard view's ontological position on determinism, and yet you say below.....

The sciences do not make an ontological commitment to "what's really the case ontologically behind stochastic processes." — Terrapin Station

and, of course, you would need to show how random processes lead to free will obtaining, despite your claim that you were only...oh, jeez, I repeat myself in anticipation of your evasion techniques.

blah, blah, posturing. — Coben
Good argument. — Terrapin Station

Oh, are you an Aspie? Do you need extra contextual evidence and labeling to show you the intentions of a comment like the one of mine you quoted? God, this is going to take so much explaining and I am so tired. Aspies tire me. Well, see, that was me pointing out your behavior. It was not me making an argument, just as your posturing was not an argument, but me not being an Aspie, I realized this and, well, got annoyed and correctly labeled it. I label your non-argument for what it is and then you have the gall to point our this labeling is not an argument.

But nice quip, well, almost.

My experience is that you can't concede anything, and while your avoidance techniques reveal an incredibly clever mind, I'm afraid I have lost interest in trying to get you to notice your contradictions or to respond to my posts genuously and in the opposite of disingenuously. So, I'll just snipe occasionally. Enjoy your rationalizations.

Apologies to Aspies, I just thought it would also be good for the gander to have his neurological patterns whined about, since he has, of late, taken a really snotty ad hom turn. In the sense of to the man.

Although my operational symbols and conceptual descriptions of the sets are far from the symbols of standard set theory, I hope you see the parallel and agree that the probability of god existing, without any other consideration, is the same as the probability of god not existing. — god must be atheist

So, from our limited perspective, according to this, there is a 50% probability God exists?

1. Stochastic processes are a modelling method, — Isaac

Yes, that's what I thought. I didn't think it was an ontological difference, but an in situ, practical way of modeling.

Even it if was a new ontological position in science, and I am assuming you are correct it is not, it still wouldn't help his position, since we'd need a way to make random phenomena a source of free choices.

I am assuming you are correct, because if it was based on a non-deterministic ontology (and further one not related to qm processes) then I think it would have trickled down to non-experts like me who do take a strong interest in science.

blah, blah, posturing. Stochastic processes have a random element. How does random translate into free will. And sure, I am no expert in whether stochastic models are ontologically non-deterministic or practically carried out as if there is a random element given the complexity of the variables and parameters. But that's all neither here nor ad hommy there. I don't see where free will comes in via random elements.

Free will obtains via the fact that the world is not strongly deterministic. The standard view in the sciences, by the way, is that the world is not strongly deterministic, where that's been the standard view for over 150 years now, but somehow the message isn't getting through. — Terrapin Station

If you are talking about qm effects or patterns, these are not deterministic, but so far I haven't heard how these could lead to freedom. They are not chosen, nor is there any evidence, yet, that the variablity in qm can be utilized by a conscious being. As in, out of the range of possible the wave function options I collapsed it in this way. And my choice was not determined by previous experiences I've had and/or my nature. I don't see any evidence yet that non-deterministic processes in science support any free will theory.