Yes, you have a choice, the only choice you do not have is that of not reacting. … you have the ability to reason, to change your mind, and to not react in this way, but to react in another. — boagie

Basically all you’re saying is that everything in the physical world reacts. If you drop a rubber ball it will bounce when it hits the ground or if you bounce it on someone’s face they will react in some way to this stimulus. If everything is reaction then nothing is reaction and the term becomes meaningless.

Hunger is a need of something in the outside world, a necessity, an energy source. — boagie

The hunger or, as you say, “cognitive motivation” doesn’t come from apples or mom’s meatloaf, it is inherent to our body/mind, which isn’t the outside world, right?

Anything you do in the outside world is first cognitively motivated by the outside world, and by this definition is reaction NOT an action. — boagie

This is clearly false. Thirst, hunger, and the desire for sex, are encoded into our dna, and what could be more internal than that. We’re even inherently motivated to consume specific kinds of food, such as those high in fat and sugar. In fact, on a daily basis we may have to internally chose to override our inherent motivations because they’re unhealthy or not socially acceptable. We have the capacity of reason and therefore we can contemplate how to best navigate the outside world in pursuit of our chosen goals. Granted we react in many circumstances, but as I’ve mentioned several times, we can train ourselves to react in particular ways.

Sensible things can be divided. Or at least, they can if they are physical things - that is, if they take up space. For anything that takes up some space can be divided in two. One can have half a mug, half a piece of cheese, half a molecule, and so on. But not half a mind. Well, if all things that are extended in space can, by their very nature, be divided and one's mind cannot be divided, then one's mind is not extended in space and is thus not a sensible object. (This venerable argument, versions of which can be found in Plato, Descartes and Berkeley among others, seems by itself sufficient to establish that the mind is immaterial, not material). — Bartricks

Significantly, both mug and mind are concepts. They are not actual things that exists independently and each have various aspects. Depending on how you cut a mug in half it may more retain or lose its ‘mugness’. If you cut it vertically it will no longer be able to function as a mug. It you cut it horizontally it can still function as a mug, though a shorter one with less capacity. In a very real sense the vertically cut mug is no longer a mug.

Moving on to minds, it just so happens that there are brains that have been medically split.
According to Lizzie Schechter, assistant professor of philosophy and philosophy-neuroscience-psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, “The impression that a split-brain subject has two minds is correct”. I won’t bother posting the evidence for her conclusion. If split-brain research interests you it’s easy to look up. Cutting the corpus callosum doesn’t produce two identities, however, so if your concept of a mind requires a human self-identity this example may be inadequate. Of course that would mean that you don’t regard most species as having minds because they don’t possess human minds with our sense of self.

there has to be something in the outside world which you wish to create an effect/change in, this is motivation, and by definition of motivation, it is necessarily reaction. — boagie

How does this rule of yours apply to conditioning yourself, as with breaking or forming a habit? If I deliberately form a habit in myself I'm not changing anything in the "outside world", nor is there any external object that motivates me. Say I have a habit of dwelling on misfortunes and because at some point I realize that it's causing me some unpleasant feelings I decide to stop dwelling on misfortunes and think more positive thoughts. Though my mood improves nothing physically changes in the world, besides some alterations in my neural pathways. According to your rule I would not be able to break the habit because there is no external motivation to do so or nothing to cause a reaction.

The problem with what you’re saying is that Red’s world and my world are quite different, even though we occupy the same environment. Our minds and bodies innately shape the world differently. What this indicates is that to a large extent I don’t react to the ‘outside’ world but to my internal representation of the world. Many human actions are based on social constructs or things that don’t actually exist. For example, Red will never realize the value of money and consequently it could never motivate him. In the human world money is probably the most widely accepted fiction there is, and obviously it can be highly motivating. If an alien behaviorist from outer-space visited earth and wanted to understand human behavior surrounding money they would need to learn what it is or form mental representations of it in their own minds. Depending on how their minds model reality that may be easy, difficult, or like Red, impossible.

Also, I can motivate and condition myself, with long-term abstract goals that require sacrifices and may only offer a potential reward. That is human action.

Red, as well as yourself, are reactive creatures. — boagie

We are also causal creatures. We can both motivate.

Three variations on the same question. Is abortion ok, or not, or sometimes ok and not? The only answer that can reasonably govern all is one that science gives. That is what science is supposed to figure out, if it can. — tim wood

Science is a systematic and logical approach to discovering how things in the universe work. It is also the body of knowledge accumulated through the discoveries about all the things in the universe. Science does not determine what actions are "ok" because what's ok and not ok is a moral question or a question based on things like moral intuition, subjective values, and cultural norms. If, for example, science somehow determined that personhood began at around week 23 and, miraculously, even the religious community accepted this as true, does that make it okay to terminate life that's becoming a person? That seems to suggest that it's more ok to terminate a baby than an adult. Doesn't really work that way, right?

Science doesn't determine our moral intuitions. Regardless of science, abortion feels wrong and that's "ok", we're not slaves to our intuitions. We're also not slaves to our values and culture, though science is notoriously bad at influencing these things.

Until science sorts it out to a certainty — tim wood

What exactly is science supposed to sort out to a certainty?

Damn, he was a powerful actor.

If one believes that people act badly through spontaneous action, this leave us in complete bewilderment as to cause. All reaction of reactionary creatures is first motivated thus, it is reaction. — boagie

Since he was a pup, I trained Red to howl at sirens by simply howling myself whenever one was audible in the neighborhood. I’m not exactly sure what the motivation for his compliance might be, there were no treats involved. Maybe kind of a pack mentality thing and I taught him a pack behavior. Whatever the case, he’s fully conditioned to react in a particular way to a particular stimulus. As I mentioned, there’s no practical reason for this behavior. There’s no goal achieved by it, other than my simple amusement. Though the conditioning may naturally fade over time if not reinforced with practice, Red will never consciously plan to change his conditioning himself. Dogs don’t have the capacity of abstract though and planning in order to do that.

If I don’t like the way that I react to a particular stimulus I can consciously change how I react. In other words, if I have a bad habit that interferes with my goals I can recondition myself to act in a way that better suits my goals. This is a uniquely human ability, it is human action.

I suggest there may be something wrong with Red, was he abused before he became your dog? My experience with animals is that if they are asured of their food, there is none of this behaviour of eating as much as is possiable to the point of illness, has Red ever known starvation? — boagie

Most people, in America anyway, are overweight and suffer serious health consequences of poor dietary choices. Dogs do not consider the consequences at all. Red is no exception and has suffered no abuse of any kind. We’ve had him since he was eight weeks old, and he comes from a reliable breeder.

Coincidentally, the photo may suggest that Red is conscientious about what he eats, appearing to be reading the label of a bag of food, but that is not the case. It’s just the earliest photo that I have of him, and when he still lived with the breeder.

Anyway, you’ve asked for an example of human action and I’ve been attempting to provide such examples. I will offer another that also involves Red. I’ve trained Red to howl when he hears a siren. If he hears the siren of a police car, fire truck, or ambulance his reaction to that stimulus will be to howl. There is absolutely no practical reason for this reaction or training for this reaction. I started training him to react this way out of mere whimsy and because I find it amusing to see him howl. So what am I reacting to that I train him to react this way?

This thread reminds me of it again.

The fact that my country, and Sweden and Norway and Iceland and Denmark are in fact are legally tougher at women getting an abortion than the US as abortion laws in the US are actually more lax than in the Nordic countries. — ssu

Yet the abortion rate is about the same as in the US, at least in more recent years.

Abortion in Norway has an interesting history, as it does most places I imagine. An important milestone for the issue of abortion on request came on 15 January 1915, when Katti Anker Møller gave a speech in Kristiania (now Oslo) calling for legalized abortion on request. She said that "the basis for all freedom is the governance over one's own body and everything that is in it. The opposite is the condition of a slave." Apparently it was a feminist movement that eventually prevailed in the fight.

From what I read the primary driving forces were poverty and lack of education. Women are still intentionally educated at a fraction of the rate that men are. The gains in child mortality are primarily due to government midwife programs.

:chin: No, for instance, I’m continually motivated both within and without to consume foods that are unhealthy (fat & sweet), at least in too large a quantity, and yet I abstain from consuming them too often (for the most part :grimace: ). I reason and make projections of future outcomes for the dietary decisions I make. In contrast, Red has little if any capacity to realize the consequences his insatiable appetite. I feed him well, but left to his own devices he would eat himself sick at every opportunity. He has no choice, I do.

I’m thankful for the question mark because it helps me ask questions?

I disagree. Neither religion is "about morality" IMO.
— 180 Proof

Truth be told, you're absolutely right! Both christianity and buddhism are, first and foremost, about suffering and how one might liberate oneself from it - by being moral humans. — TheMadFool

This cannot be right because religions tend to constrain moral development. Shared values/norms means no independent values/norms. Everything depends on group dependence. It’s not primary about morality, salvation, or a reduction in suffering. All that can be better achieved without religion. At core it’s simply about tribal solidarity.

Unfortunatly the more she explained the deeper the puzzeled expression grew on the poor fellows face.
— praxis

I would say that's a good outcome for both the interlocutors, buddhist and christian. It's the WTF? moment every buddhist aspires to and wishes to elicit from would-be converts — TheMadFool

Many of the enlightened folk love to revel in their self-perceived superiority, it is true. :vomit:

I guess the big difference is that I possess the explicit concepts of cause & effect and Red does not, and he’s more locked into a conditioned pattern. Although it is true that Red conditions me, I consciously condition (train) him to a far greater extent. THAT, I submit, is human action.

other organisms are cause — boagie

Sure, for instance, if my dog Red bugs me enough to take him fetch'n, I'll take him fetch'n. He causes me to embark on a particular endeavor. Later out on the field, if I throw a frisbee it will cause Red to run like a bat outta hell after it. By throwing the plastic disk I intentionally cause Red to do something. If we're on the field and I don't throw the frisbee soon enough Red will often jump and take little nips at me. This often causes me to throw the frisbee.

Oh, and yeah, Red and I are both part of the world.

I remember being in a newcomer meeting at a Buddhist center years ago and a Latin dude with very weak English, and apparently a Christian background, struggling to ask how the soul fits into the Budhdist scheme of things. He asked as though it were a given and he just didn't yet know how it fit in. None of the teachers would touch the question, the big weenies. Finally another newcomer tried to explain no-self. She was a university student and quite knoledgeable about Buddhist philosophy. Unfortunatly the more she explained the deeper the puzzeled expression grew on the poor fellows face.

The world is cause, and organisms are ALL reactive creatures... — boagie

ALL reactive creatures are part of the world and are therefore causal, right?

I never served. My wife had a female student who enlisted and was deployed to Afghanistan. One night she was knocked unconscious and raped, most likely by an American soldier. Suffers permanent brain damage.

The US military has lots of women in it. — frank

A quick google search says around 14%. In the top ranks only 7%. So better for cannon fodder than leadership, apparently.

Women are loosing ground on our own soil, we’re certainly not going to help empower them anywhere else.

These people are supposed to care about children? Nope, just immiserating women. — StreetlightX

Afghan women are immiserated to the degree that the child mortality rate is the highest in the world. Nothing expresses the sanctity of life and the love of children like the highest child mortality rate on the globe.

Once again, l asked you which “liberal governments” you’re referring to and so far you’ve only specifically mentioned the United States, and the two articles that you’ve provided links to don’t show free speech abuse by this “liberal government”.

You thought, wrongly, that the HRW article pertained to the “liberal countries” I wrote about below, and not the authoritarian countries I wrote about above. That’s your misinformation, not mine. — NOS4A2

Again, I simply asked what “liberal governments” you were referring to and in response you mentioned something that the Surgeon General of the US said. This is certainly misleading, though I suppose that you may be doing this out of habit and not entirely consciously.

you accuse me of being against media literacy — NOS4A2

I stated that I can see how you would be against it. You must be against something in what I quoted above as you present it as evidence of free speech abuse. What exactly are you against in it then?

I simply asked which “liberal governments” you were referring to. In response you mentioned the US and something the surgeon general said. I then pointed out that the US is not listed for any free speech abuses by Human Rights Watch.

Here’s a map if you’re unsure. — NOS4A2

This is what it says about the US:

United States
Action: Proposed federal law, platform testimonies, failed state advisory group, state media literacy law, threat assessment, state media literacy initiatives and state lawsuits

Focus: Political ads, foreign disinformation, general misinformation, media literacy and deepfake videos

Confirmed by intelligence agencies, Russian meddling on social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election has resulted in several piecemeal actions from the federal government.

First, Congress announced a bill in October 2017 that would require online platforms such as Facebook and Google to keep copies of ads, make them public and keep tabs on who is paying — and how much. Essentially, the legislation attempts to impose existing TV and radio ad regulations on social media companies.

Then, in November 2017, representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google testified to a Senate judiciary committee on their role in spreading disinformation during the election. During that meeting, there was broad consensus that Russia did manipulate their platforms, but the platforms projected an appearance of control when it comes to monitoring fake accounts and ad buyers.

Meanwhile, the California state government passed a law in September 2018 that bolsters media literacy in public schools. It requires the Department of Education to list instructional materials and resources on how to evaluate trustworthy media. The law was inspired by a Stanford University student who found that most students can’t distinguish between sponsored content and news stories and comes amid several current and former attempts to improve media literacy in at least 24 states.

One of those states is Washington, where lawmakers are debating a media literacy bill that would establish a grant program for organizations working to include media literacy in school curricula. And in 2018, Massachusetts lawmakers passed a bill that mandates civic education with an emphasis on media literacy.

Also in California, Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have created an advisory group aimed at monitoring the spread of misinformation on social media and coming up with potential solutions. The group, which Brown called “not necessary,” would have asked social media companies, NGOs and First Amendment scholars to present their findings by Dec. 31, 2019.

In mid-September 2018, two Democrats and one Republican representative sent a letter to the director of national intelligence asking the intelligence community to assess the possible national security threats posed by deepfake technology and present a report to Congress by the end of 2018. Lawmakers cited the potential for foreign adversaries to use deepfake videos against U.S. interests as a key reason to investigate them.

In January 2019, a company that created fake social media profiles to make millions of dollars in revenue settled a case with the New York state attorney, CNN reported. The settlement is the first case in which law enforcement has concluded that selling fake social media activity is illegal.

I can easily see how you would be against any legislation that seeks to address the threat of Russian interference in US elections, and that you would be against media literacy.

One example would be the United States. The surgeon general called misinformation an “urgent threat” and called on tech companies to take action. European countries have long been waging battle against social media companies over “misinformation”. — NOS4A2

In the Human Rights Watch article you linked to the US isn’t listed for any free speech abuses. It seems you are trying to spread misinformation, as usual.

But it is also quite ubiquitous across more liberal governments. For the last few years many of these states have pressured social media companies to censor “fake news” and “misinformation”, the newest bogeyman. In compliance, they have employed an army of busybodies and algorithms to root out speech that is not first approved by the state. — NOS4A2

Which “more liberal governments” are you referring to?

Here’s some maps if you’re unsure: https://features.hrw.org/features/features/covid/index.html?#censorship

They say it's the little things that make life worth living so that's where I'll start, with the little things:

Quarks, Protons, Electrons, Atoms – where would we be without this stuff?!
And scaling up a bit, thank you baby squids for being so damn cute.

Actual links would be helpful, and this "Please stop spamming inane shit" didn't show up when I searched for it.

Anyway, an accusation of trolling is essentially an ad hom if it's not warranted.

Can you show where you've experienced it on this forum?

Reading a book about a subject is great but one cannot expect or even "see" results if this subject involves training, and particularly an intensive and long one. In this case, one has to find out what other people who have obtained results say about them. — Alkis Piskas

Meido Moore has obtained results. He’s been practicing practically his whole life, in Japan and the US. And as I’ve said, in my experience with Zen centers in the LA area, what he says holds true.

Religions and governments typically are though.
— praxis

You mean "Churches" (religious/spiritual leaderships), right? — Alkis Piskas

Any kind of brand that is supported by a particular group, I suppose. It could be a religious, political, or business brand. Any brand wants you to be as dependent on that brand as possible and therefore has an interest in its subscribers not developing, because self-development in morals or enlightenment, or even physical health, leads to independence. Just look at the animals that we literally brand. We want them to be tame, predictable, and just healthy and capable enough to service our needs.

A drug dealer (legal or illegal) or medical professional doesn't want you to get your act together and stop buying their product or service. A capitalist society wants to teach its citizens how to pursue status and material gain, not well-being. Religious leaders want to spoon-feed their followers' meaning. They don't want them to find it for themselves because then they'd lose their support and the tradition would collapse.

In religion, Zen is a good example of what I mean because it's regarded as an austere tradition that focuses on training (meditation) and experiential intuition. Some people don't even consider it a religion. If this were really true then why isn't the training better than it typically is?

I'm currently working through a book on Zen training called Hidden Zen, by Meido Moore. Best book on meditation techniques I've ever seen, with in-depth instructions on breathing, posture, the works. In the introduction of the book, he explains the reasons for publishing it, starting with the claim that many of the practices within it are not commonly taught. In one part he writes, "Aside from the sparsity of teaching resources, a real danger of incomplete Zen of this kind is that it can easily devolve into a mere collection of trappings largely stripped of their inner function. It may ultimately become a burden rather than an aid, a kind of vaguely Buddhist identity rather than a dynamic path of liberation." I've been involved with a few Zen sanghas and I can attest to this "incomplete Zen."

The title of the book refers to these withheld or forgotten techniques. WTF, right!? The same principle working as it does in the field of medicine. Cure the patient, or show them how to help themselves, and they stop showing up for treatment. Give them just enough so they'll keep coming back, hide the rest.

Mostly just fun & games and I don’t care if he’s being genuine or honest, though openly speaking of lying to others so they’ll behave the way you’d like them to behave is both pathetic and contemptible.

I don't get this, you said people should be lied to, and go further to say that you support lying to people, but when asked what specific lies you'd like to spread you get offended and shut-down.

Personally, I do not support deception of this kind. I'm curious though.

If it's simply that you're not sure what lies you'd like to spread then you could just clarify that.

I have to say, this makes me question your honesty in general. Do you lie and support lying to people on this forum?

You said people should be lied to.
— Fine Doubter

I said it and I support it!
They aren't at the intellectual level yet as to handle the truth. It's still necessary. Like it or not. — dimosthenis9

Exactly what lies do you want to spread?

Create "religious groups", which are built around a basic ethics system and a set of priciples, and which will act to support and help each other and other groups or individuals to a better life. A better life for all, in general, physically (materially) and spiritually, always based on common sense. Discussions will also be in the daily agenda! (Well, I have not workded it out well yet. This is just "sketch"
— Alkis Piskas

It is almost exactly what I had in my mind.
Discussions would be the MAIN agenda basically. — dimosthenis9

Mutual support, basic ethics, common sense, discussion... what you describe is basically typical family life. That is already well established. It still has one of the main limitations that religions do, which is that the group is of limited size and there will always be an out-group which helps to reify the family identity.

Religions require an ultimate authority and a metaphysics to which that authority has special access. That's the basic recipe for faith.

I read a book called "Mystic Theology" by a known Greek Orthodox mystic who lived in early 1st c. and I was really amazed. It was so close to the Eastern philosophy! (In fact, some people characterize it as Greek Zen). Guess what. The book were excluded from the official Greek Orthodox literature by the Church! If more books like that (and other works of the same author) were written, accepted and promoted for study, the whole Christianity would be totally different today! — Alkis Piskas

If any system, be it a belief system or form of government, were supportive of independence, self realization, reduction of existential anxiety, new perspectives, enlightenment, etc. then it would not be against mysticism. Religions and governments typically are though. Even in Zen it’s the rare case where mysticism is practiced with any real diligence.